


The Longest Night (A Solstice Story)

by LaMachina17



Category: Chinese Actor RPF, 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV) RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, And they're after XZ, Barebacking, Getting Together, Handcuffs, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Mystery, References to the murders of off screen OCs, Rimming, Slow Burn, There's a serial killer on the loose, Thriller, Top Wang Yi Bo/Bottom Xiao Zhan | Sean, Winter Solstice, referenced past sexual assault, werepanther!WYB, witch!XZ
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:47:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28305537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaMachina17/pseuds/LaMachina17
Summary: Magic dances at the edges of Xiao Zhan's fingertips. It's the Solstice night, and The Untamed Lounge is packed with bodies. He sings into the night, scanning the room for the sensual bartender currently serving a drink for one of the regulars. He lets he senses open, out of curiosity, and dips into the man's emotions. The cold grip of fear freezes him in place.Despite his cool exterior, the younger man is scared, and Xiao Zhan hasn't the slightest idea why.It's darkness night of the year, and Wang Yibo is the only supernatural standing between him and never seeing the light of day again.
Relationships: Wang Yi Bo/Xiao Zhan | Sean
Comments: 57
Kudos: 343
Collections: BJYX Secret Santa





	The Longest Night (A Solstice Story)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [emma_screams](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emma_screams/gifts).



> Disclaimer: This is a work fiction. This work is in no way, shape, or form a reflection on any real people, places, or events that are referenced within it.

Part 1 - Xiao Zhan  
December 21st - Winter Solstice - Beijing

🀩❄🀩

Emotions drift redolent around the venue: euphoria, frustration, excitement, sorrow. The taste of them at the edges of Xiao Zhan’s perception is as sharp as a salted lemon, bitter as wine, sweet as chocolate, and smooth as cream. The texture tickles his skin, heavy and bruising, soft and featherlight at once. Humans always carry with them the same mixture of smells and emotions when they enter a place like this.

The Untamed Lounge resonates with it.

Xiao Zhan doesn’t pay much mind to it, the intoxicating concoction of desire and yearning. Humans tip well, and they are always fascinated by the prospect of being in the company of a witch, especially one like Xiao Zhan whose voice is as enchanting as his appearance. (He’s been told before that he has a nice face, “descended from the heavens” one patron had said. Not that he takes any stock in that. He knows he’s not ugly. That’s enough for him.) His features today are accentuated by some light eyeliner and a dusting of highlighter over his cheekbones, hair done up in a messy bun with hairspray to make it look like someone’s been running their fingers through it. 

He’s dressed in a multi-layered hanfu of fine red silk with gold accents. They look like wedding robes, if he’s being honest, but the colors fit with the venue’s decor. A complement to the crimson festival lanterns, plum blossoms, and gilded paper snowflakes that are hung throughout the club. The decorator has incorporated western ornaments into the space as well, including mistletoe, holly, and pine accents throughout. Someone even set up a tree by the stage, topped with a star and decked out to the nines in red and gold ornaments with hand fans and tinsel. It’s gaudy and awful and jaded, but it’s the holidays. What better time to be overt?

Ever since Xiao Zhan started working at The Untamed Lounge as a singer and soothsayer two weeks ago, the club has experienced a steady influx of patrons. Occasionally, the boss asks him to do some fortune telling for a private group, but it’s all parlor tricks and illusions for this kind of establishment. Humans can’t handle the real stuff, nor do they realize exactly what it is they are asking for when they say they want to know their future. They only want to hear that they will fall in love, or come into good money, or find a better career. Those kinds of things. No one wants to hear their boyfriend of five years will never propose or that the promotion they’ve been up for twice will be given to someone else yet again. No one wants to be told that their life has stagnated beyond their control. Of course, by the slide of the other hand, they most definitely don’t want to hear about true change. True change is scary and unnerving, enough so that the knowledge of its inevitable coming can ruin a person and leave them clutching at straws that were never there to clutch.

He doesn’t have any readings lined up tonight in deference to the solstice. He’d blatantly refused to even play pretend on this, the darkest night of the year when reading anyone's innermost wants and desires would prove far too intense an experience for both him and his patrons. Gods forbid anyone accidentally touch him tonight. With the veil between the past and the future as thin as ever, he was almost certain to have a premonition at the slightest skin to skin contact. The boss hadn’t been happy about it, but what could he do? Fire him? This wouldn’t be the first job he walked away from in the last six months, and it probably won’t be the last, especially once the owner wised up and realized exactly who he was, but that was a problem for the future.

His eyes glide over the room: dancing bodies in glittering gowns and suits, waiters in fine pressed suits, and the bartenders in their uniform vests and sleeves, save for one with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and silver glittering from his ears. 

Wang Yibo…

A man who, at a glance, seemed to exude the kind of bad boy aura that any weak admirer would swoon over with dark, nearly obsidian eyes that could bore directly into the core of your being. The strong line of his jaw and smooth arch of his brow gave him a profile only a fool would look away from, and none of it detracted from the supple sway of his lips, plump and quick to pull into the most sinful angles and shapes in the name of tempting a customer. But Xiao Zhan has spent more than just a few passing moments with the man. 

He’d met the bartender his first day working at the club. The young man had only begun working at the club a few weeks before Xiao Zhan, and in the short time he’s been singing with the club band, the bartender has never failed to entice him over for a drink on the house and good conversation. And that time, Xiao Zhan has found that when Yibo smiles, like truly smiles, genuine and happy, his eyes sparkle brighter than any star and his cheeks rise into the most devastating curve. It is sweet and sugary and could wreck anyone lucky enough to witness it. Xiao Zhan would know. The first time he saw it, he almost hadn’t made it home, ready to offer himself up right there on the bar. He’d resisted, but can you blame him for wanting. The man is young and alluring and also, he’s sure, the only other non-human in the room besides himself. What exactly, he hasn't quite figured out, but no human is capable of exuding that kind of aura.

The man meets his eye from across the room as he mixes a drink for a beautiful, no doubt wealthy, woman in a plain sweater and trousers. Yibo’s patron smiles up at him, coy and beckoning, but Yibo doesn’t give her a second glance, eyeing, instead, Xiao Zhan the way a predator tracks its prey before pouncing.

He smiles across at the younger man as he steps back up to the microphone, swallowing down the water in his mouth before addressing the crowd.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, we are nearing the witching hour, here at The Untamed Music and Magic Lounge, and we’ll be closing our set this winter solstice with a piece that I think you will find appropriate for Dongzhi. Ladies and gentlemen, without further adieu, I present to you ‘Magical’ for this blessed solstice night.”

Behind him one of the backup singers begins a chanting cadence while an austere series of notes plays from a sitar and echoes through the various instruments both classical and contemporary. The music crescendos and then the band picks up the tempo with the drum set and electric guitars.

Xiao Zhan begins to move in a series of deliberately sensual movements beginning the spellweave his boss asked him to make just for the night before his voice even joins the music. Several audience members gasp as his aura shimmers in the air around him, sparkles of red and gold magic that swirl around his hands and dance around his body before weaving its way into the crowd. Some of the women move to try and touch the glittering tendrils of energy, but the strings are intangible, and they disappear at a glance, flitting away like butterflies into the ether. It’s like catching the wind, impossible for anyone greedy enough to try. 

The magic he is unfolding into the room isn’t anything wondrous per se, muted and carefully measured as it is. Just a simple solstice blessing. Something to heighten the endorphins of the various patrons scattered throughout the establishment. Get them to walk out the door in a good mood, happy and content with themselves and their loved ones on this dark night. A spell for safety, a spell for light, a spell to ward away misfortune, a spell to invite the new things the coming year may bring. It’s easy and familiar. Something he can manage even through the binding rope around his wrist.

Xiao Zhan lets the song wash through him, pretends the only person in the room is a certain bartender looking his way over the glass he is presently cleaning, and begins to sing.

_In an instance, in front of our eyes  
A beam of light appeared, leading to another world  
A Bindi on our foreheads,  
veils covering our faces_

_It seems like everyone has a special aura  
Because of the enchanting scent of the curry  
The waters of the Ganges river, the leaves of the sacred fig,  
Scenes from a distant past_

_Time is reversing_

_The two of us dressed in yarn,  
listening to this sacred music,  
Wondering if this is a hallucination_

_A strange language_

_Repeatedly urging me  
To quickly begin dancing  
Ahhhh~ Ahhh~ _

Xiao Zhan sways his hips to the music, grinding down into an imaginary body. His pupils dilate as the casting takes hold, threading through the room of humans who will do naught but benefit from his weaving. They may start feeling a bit more generous as far as tips go, but that would be the result of the small high he is gifting them. A high he will taste himself but only a little.

They love it. He can taste it. Their excitement, their adoration, their lust. It all tangles together on his periphery, licking at his psyche, insistent, but he holds up his usual guards, acknowledges their emotions but does not invite them in. That would be dangerous. That would be too viscerous.

Chocolate brown irises scan over the room towards the bar, a subtle red gleam in them that only another witch or supernatural would catch. Yibo is looking his way, a rather interesting expression on his face. It’s not a bad expression, not really. It’s intense, the way Yibo is staring at him. No doubt, he can feel the weave Xiao Zhan is blanketing over the room. Xiao Zhan takes a risk and skirts his awareness over in Wang Yibo’s direction and nearly fumbles the note he is carrying. Xiao Zhan wasn’t expecting to feel this particular emotion skirting over the bartender’s awareness. 

Despite his open expression, Yibo is frightened.

_Time and space are  
Changing, changing, changing  
The scenes are breaking apart  
The cycle of life keeps  
Turning, turning, turning  
Holding onto the same beliefs_

_My love travelled to you from the boundaries of time._

_Time and space are  
Changing, changing, changing  
You can enter my future  
The cycle of life keeps  
Turning, turning, turning  
I underwent sorrow and joy_

_This is magical._

As quickly as the emotion skirts across the bartender’s psyche, it disappears as soon as the man realizes Xiao Zhan is looking at him. Yibo blushes and turns away from Xiao Zhan’s performance. His heart clenches. What is Yibo so scared of? Magic? 

The bartender runs a nervous hand through his hair, and Xiao Zhan sees a flash of blue-green shimmer into existence before soft brown tresses resettle over the man’s forehead. Is he wearing a glamour charm?

Before he can think too closely on the unsettled feeling in Xiao Zhan chest, Yibo turns back to the stage, face curiously calculating like he’s trying to fit a puzzle piece together. His lips move, but Xiao Zhan can’t exactly make out what it is he is saying, and then the corner of the bartender’s mouth quirks up, nothing but an array of positive emotions. He winks at Xiao Zhan from across the room, raising a glass into the air in salute, and then turns to serve his next customer.

The fear is no longer at the forefront, but it’s still there like a shadow under the man’s calm exterior.

Xiao Zhan puts the strange behavior out of his mind, allowing himself to relish in the dash of affection he felt hovering over Yibo when they’d made eye contact, and coaxes his magic to wind around him like a balm. No. Like a dream. It always feels like this, drawing on his pool of power, that hint of exhilaration, the lean over the edge of a pool of ambrosia, into which the slightest dip could be truly rapturous. He won’t let himself swim in it though. He once dove into that deep pool before, stayed down for so long he nearly drowned himself. He won’t do it again. Not now, not ever again.

The band continues to play, and Xiao Zhan sings on, a little night music for the longest night of the year.

🀩❄🀩

At midnight, just after the final notes of the song ring out into the room, Xiao Zhan bows to the audience, soaking in the applause with relish before leaving the stage. He has no interest in staying out any longer than necessary, not on the solstice. He’ll just stop by the bar for his usual drink from Yibo, give the man the little trinket he made for him, and then head home after some conversation. He’s made a decent amount tonight, enough to cover his rent and utilities and Jianguo’s food for the next two months plus a little more. 

Several of his band mates chat animatedly about their plans for the evening when he walks into the staff locker room to collect his things.

“Good performance tonight, Lao Xiao!”

One of them shouts. He offers the group his own compliments before starting his own post-show rituals. Undressing, taking off his make-up, etcetera, etcetera.

Now that he is off stage, he allows himself the opportunity to ponder at his co-worker’s strange reaction to his spell. Maybe he doesn’t like magic or witches or both, not that Xiao Zhan ever made any attempt to hide what he is. Surely, the man knew he was a witch the very first day he started working here. It had kind of been his selling point - the club had certainly capitalized on his status - and it hadn’t stopped the man from flirting with him these last two weeks.

So why the negative reception to the flexing of power.

Why the fear?

Xiao Zhan’s phone rings as he strips off his outer garments, leaving him in just an undershirt. He finishes pulling on his jeans as he reaches for it. He ruffles through the side pocket to unlock it. It’s his mother.

He smiles and answers.

“Ma!”

“ZhanZhan!! Happy Dongzhi, sweetheart!”

“Happy Dongzhi, son!”

“Happy Dongzhi, Mama. Happy Dongzhi, Baba.”

He misses his parents. This is the first year he’ll be spending the solstice away from home. Even through the college, he had always made sure to make it back to Chongqing during the holiday, but now…

“Are you spending the holiday with anyone special, A-Zhan?”

Xiao Zhan shakes his head, nearly blushing at the prospect of telling her anything about the bartender he is planning on giving a solstice gift to, but it would hardly be appropriate to mention such things. Even if he did mention it to her, it's not like he would be able to give her any details other than that he's a bartender with the most effortlessly sensual visage he has ever seen. One who is, for all appearances, afraid of magic.

“No, Ma. I just got off work. I’m heading home.”

“ZhanZhan,” she scolds through the line. “You can’t spend Dongzhi alone.”

“I won’t be alone. I have Jianguo.”

“Your familiar is not a replacement for social interaction, and she, certainly, is not a replacement for romantic companionship.”

“Ma,” groans Xiao Zhan.

“Honey,” calls Xiao Zhan’s father through the line. “Don’t pester our son about his love life. He’s only been in Beijing for a few months. He needs to build himself up there before he can start dating again.”

He can hear his mother frown through the phone line. A couple of his band mates bid him good night on their way out the door, and Xiao Zhan waves back with a smile. The door shuts behind them with a click, leaving him alone in the locker room.

“Oh! Fine!” she proclaims to his father before readdressing him. “A-Zhan, are you safe? Are you wearing your bracelet? Nothing strange happening with your powers, right? You know how dangerous it can be for witches on the solstice night. Did you light your Yule log?”

“I lit the fireplace before I left, Jianguo is holding vigil as always, and yes, I have the bracelet you made me.”

As he says this, he rolls the red corded bracelet back and forth around his wrist. The small amulet has been his grounding point away from home since he left nearly ten years ago for college. Since the incident early this year, it has been even more fundamental to him, a necessity since he had to relocate to Beijing.

His mother sighs in relief.

“Good. Well, we won’t keep you, A-Zhan. Just be safe tonight, alright? It’s a long time ‘til dawn.”

“I know, Mama.”

“Take care of yourself, son. We’ll call you in the morning. Don’t forget to mind your magic. It’s always more potent on festival days.”

“Of course, Baba.”

“Blessed be, ZhanZhan.”

“Bye, Bye. Blessed Be.”

The phone call cuts off as his mother hangs up the phone. He sighs to himself as he tucks it back into his bag. As he reaches for his sweater, the lights go out over his head.

What the…

Xiao Zhan looks up at the lights before walking over to where the lightswitch is. He flicks it once, twice, three times to no effect. His locker door slams shut, and Xiao Zhan whirls around and sees the faint outline of a shadow flickering into the deeper darkness.

“Who’s there?”

A whisper echoes in Xiao Zhan’s mind.

“他们会消耗你的.” They’re going to consume you.

He looks down at his wrist to see the bracelet glowing dimly in the darkness. So not a who. A what.

“Who’s got a kiss for the wickedy witch, the wickedy witch, the wickedy witch?”

Xiao Zhan looks up as a high-pitched singsong voice starts in on a nursery rhyme he’s never heard before and sees it. It’s a young girl in a tattered white dressing gown. Her long black hair spills over her head and shoulders in damp, heavy tendrils, obscuring her face. Her bare feet slap wetly against the tiled floor. A Nü gui. The vengeful spirit of a woman wronged before her death.

“What do you want?”

The ghost continues her singing at a higher pitch. High enough it puts Xiao Zhan’s teeth on edge.

“Who’s got a kiss for the wickedy witch, the wickedy witch, the wickedy witch?”

The female ghost begins to walk towards him, one arm extended, pointer finger aimed straight at Xiao Zhan as he backs up towards the door. He grips the handle and turns, but it is stuck fast. She walks nearer, one step after the other even as her upper body distorts and convulses in inhuman patterns. Xiao Zhan grits his teeth and begins to channel magical energy from his core. He closes his eyes and focuses his attention on creating a shield around himself, the magic lighting up in front of him.

Her head tilts and he gets a good look at her eyes, blood filled and vacant as though she was strangled or suffocated to death in life. The ghost flickers. Screaming floods through Xiao Zhan’s head, the pain of it blinding him.

“He’s got a kiss for the wickedy witch!!”

Lifeless fingers grope for his neck. A split tongue lashes at his face. The shield he summoned holds firm sparking at the impact of the ghost’s essence against it. A cold hand reaches through the netting and burns ice into his bare forearm. Xiao Zhan jerks backwards in fright crashing into the door behind him.

The Nü gui vanishes, the lights turn back on, and the door at Xiao Zhan’s back opens. Xiao Zhan falls straight through it only to be caught by a pair of strong, solid hands gripping his biceps. 

“Zhan-ge?”

The world shifts sideways, and Xiao Zhan is on his knees, wrists handcuffed to a barred bedframe in front of him, a body behind him shoving harshly into him, fucking him, devouring him. There are claws at his waist, teeth in his neck, and a deep, hungry growl in his ear. 

“Zhan-ge, I could just eat you alive.”

He smells sex and blood and petrichor. He feels alive, ecstasy singing in his nerve endings. He is alive being torn asunder by the man at his back. He is alive being slotted into place and pumped and bitten and loved. He is alive, shouting for all the world to hear as the being - not human, he couldn’t be human - lays claim to him, devouring him whole. He is alive. He is alive. He is alive… 

“My Xiao Zhan. My witch. My-”

Xiao Zhan screams.

“Zhan-ge!”

Xiao Zhan comes back to himself with a jolt.

“Xiao Zhan, are you alright?”

Yibo hovers over him, worry lining his face. Xiao Zhan jerks away from the bartender so fast his head spins.

“I’m fine. Thank you.”

The phantom heat of Yibo’s hands lingers on his arms; well that and the echoes of his premonition, stirring in his groin even as something else chokes his lungs. The smell of petrichor under the man’s cologne; like rain and pavement, lingers in his senses, so warm he could curl up inside it and never surface again. 

Yibo steps forward.

“You were down here for a while, so I came to check on you. You looked great on stage. Zhan-ge is always so handsome when he performs.”

Have Yibo’s eyes always glinted like that in the shadows?

Fear grips him then. Real true fear. Irrational fear. Fear for the unknown person that is Wang Yibo. He gives himself a mental shake and yanks on his sweater. As he does, Yibo’s eyes flick down to his forearm, and the fabric scratches painfully as he drags the sleeve on.

Yibo gestures backwards, the thumb of one hand pointing arbitrarily into the space behind him.

“You up for your usual? There’s a vodka tonic with your name on it, if you want it. All I have to do is mix it for you.”

“No, thank you. I’m uh, I’m just going to head home. I’m not feeling too well.”

“Oh? Do you need a ride? My motorcycle is parked just around the block.”

If Xiao Zhan had been paying closer attention, he would have noticed the unease with which Yibo offers the lift. As it is, he just wants to get the hell out of there as quickly as possible.

“No,” he says too quickly. He pulls on his overcoat and practically flings his bag over his shoulder. “I’ll just walk it. I’m not too far from here. Thanks though. I’ll, um, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He feels like his heart is about to beat right out of his chest. Xiao Zhan sidesteps his way around Yibo, and the small parcel in his pocket drops onto the floor. It lands on Yibo’s foot, and the man ducks down to pick it up.

“You dropped something.”

Xiao Zhan stalls and looks down at the neatly wrapped present in Yibo’s palm. It looks so much smaller there, in Yibo’s large hand, wrapped in plain green paper with a thin red bow.

“Here.”

Yibo extends the little box out to Xiao Zhan, who shakes his head.

“No, that’s okay. It’s for you actually. It’s nothing really. Just a little trinket for the festival.”

Something shifts across Yibo’s face as he looks from the gift upto Xiao Zhan’s face.

“Zhan-ge?” He sounds so terribly fond, and Xiao Zhan’s heart aches even as he backs away.

“Sorry, I’ve gotta go. Happy Dongzhi, Yibo!”

Xiao Zhan pulls the hood of his coat up and carefully paces himself not to run through the private door marked “staff entrance and exit.” His nerves tingle with the weight of the other supernatural’s gaze on him, his heart rabbiting in his chest, and he can’t, for the life of him, help but feel like prey.

🀩❄🀩

Xiao Zhan walks fast once he is out in the cold air, diving into the bustle of the city’s entertainment district still lively and noisy at the midnight hour. The street lamps are lit, there are festival lanterns hung everywhere, people excitedly dashing to and fro between the various street vendors selling tangyuan and other seasonal dishes. He keeps glancing left to right, scanning the street over the heads of the people around him. He’s at least a few kilometers from the club, yet still he feels like he is being watched. His arm twinges, and he remembers the icy chill from when the ghost grabbed him.

He glances around him once more before he halts at a crosswalk, a few cars, a bus, and a motorcyclist sitting waiting for the light to change on the street. A gaggle of teenagers chat animatedly about some hot new idol, and a mother and father swing a small child between them. When he’s sure none of them are paying him any mind, he draws the sleeve of his left arm up to his elbow. A handprint decorates Xiao Zhan’s lower forearm right around his wrist. It is more than a bruise though, frosted over like icicles kneading into his skin. 

Frostbitten.

It seeps cold and drips with necrotic energy. When he trails his fingertips over it, an icy jolt of pain ricochets through his whole being, like falling through thin ice.

The traffic light changes, and he steps forward with the people around him to cross, folding his sleeve back down and curling his arms into his chest. Once over, he turns away from the main street to head towards his flat, about two blocks away.

It’s much quieter this direction, down and away from the main thoroughfare. Less foot traffic since most of the shops closed hours ago. Rows of small mom and pop shops with residential accommodations in the upper floors. He was fortunate enough to score himself a room on the second floor of an old bookstore in the historical district. His boots click against the pavement as he goes, hands shoved deep in his coat pockets as he makes his way home. 

A shadow flits above his head as he walks under a lit overhang, and he nearly jumps out of his skin. When Xiao Zhan looks up, he can just see the shape of a cat or racoon’s tail disappearing over the edge of the building. He shakes his head at his antics.

“Get a grip, Xiao Zhan,” he chides himself. “You know how to deal with ghosts. If it comes back, you’ll just banish the dang thing.”

A rustling sound behind him draws his attention. When he glances back, he sees that a hooded figure has just turned onto the same street as him. Xiao Zhan can’t make out any of the person’s features. They have a black hoodie on over black pants, the hood pulled low over their eyes and face, their hands shoved deep into the front pocket of their sweater. It could be nothing. There are plenty of people who might wander this direction to see the architecture, and he certainly isn’t the only person who lives in the area.

Xiao Zhan increases his stride anyway, ducking his head down as the wind howls in his face. The footsteps of the person behind him increase as well.

Xiao Zhan reaches into his coat pocket, thumbing the vial there as the person’s footsteps get louder, nearer, too close for comfort. He grips the vial in his hand and turns around, ready to throw.

“Excuse me.”

The hooded person, a harmless human girl with rosy cheeks and a gentle smile, steps around him and continues her walk down the street before disappearing into one of the shops, keys jingling on her key chain as she locks the door behind her. Xiao Zhan tucks the vial back into his coat with a frustrated exhale, his cheeks puffing out like a chipmunk.

He really is losing his mind.

A gloved hand closes over his throat. Xiao Zhan chokes, twisting around as the grip tightens.

“Gotcha!” rasps a decidedly male voice.

The vial of potion falls from Xiao Zhan’s pocket and explodes on the ground. 

“Gah!!”

A series of bright lights, spectacularly chromatic and iridescent, flashs through the street. His attacker cries out at the blinding flash and covers his eyes, and Xiao Zhan punches the man in the stomach and then turns around and drives his elbow into the man’s soft diaphragm before taking off running back towards the main street.

“Fuck! Get back here. Pull!”

The spell tugs his feet out from under him, and Xiao Zhan spins to land on his back on the ground with a cry. Winded but angry, Xiao Zhan raises a hand and shouts a spell.

“Chongji!”

A bolt of lightning flashes from Xiao Zhan’s palm towards his attack. The spell hits its target, and the man goes bowling backwards, but from his left another body dives into Xiao Zhan, rolling with him into the street to hover over him. The witch fights back, kicking and swinging at the larger body currently attempting to pin him to the ground.

“Help-!” he tries to shout but a hand closes over his mouth and nose, cutting him off.

“Shut up, witch!” 

The hand on his face bears down, and Xiao Zhan’s hooded head hits the asphalt. He can’t breathe. The man, bald and muscled and probably more than 50 kilo heavier than Xiao Zhan, is suffocating him.

“Now, just relax. You’re going to take a little nap and come with me, alright!? No point hurting you yet.”

Xiao Zhan tries to shout again, trying desperately to push the hand off of his airways even as his vision begins to black out around the edges.

“Grrrrrr!”

A low growl rumbles through the street and the man gives pause, looking up just as a large, black beast rips him off of Xiao Zhan. The witch inhales cold, fresh air as he sits up just in time to see a pair of jaws close around his attacker’s forearm. Blood sprays against the nearby wall, and the beast, a panther, a large panther, black as the night itself, lifts its upper body up to slam the man back down. He drops like a dead weight onto the pavement, and the creature releases its hold on his arm.

Xiao Zhan stiffens as the big cat turns to face him. The intense green eyes of an apex predator stare him down, and Xiao Zhan’s breath quickens. The animal rolls its shoulders and angles its head as it looks at him, and a moment stretches as Xiao Zhan tries to calculate just how far he can get before those jaws close around his throat if he runs for it. The answer is: not very far.

Then the beast begins to stalk towards him.

“Stay back!” he shouts, scrambling backwards from the supernatural, and the animal freezes still as a statue. 

_I’m not going to hurt you, Zhan-ge._

Xiao Zhan stops cold and stares the large feline dead in the face.

“Wang Yibo?”

The creature seems to melt into the darkness and out of the magic-made void steps none other than the man himself. Yibo is no longer dressed in his bartender’s uniform, wearing instead black cargo pants, a long-sleeved black shirt, a black cargo vest, and various belts and chains. His hair, mostly hidden under a black beanie, is darker as well with blue-green highlights and spiked, no longer tamed and colored by the glamour charm Xiao Zhan had suspected he’d seen.

Yibo doesn’t say anything to him. He just walks over to Xiao Zhan, still crumpled up on the ground in the middle of the street, his coat and sweater half falling off his shoulder, and crouches down in front of him.

“Zhan-ge, you okay?”

“You’re a werecat,” he wheezes through the tightness in his chest. He is sweating despite the below freezing temperature of the air. Yibo’s reply comes cool and collected where Xiao Zhan feels like an exposed nerve.

“Panther, specifically.”

He’s never met a shifter before, at least not one that could turn into a predator large enough to eat him. The thought makes Xiao Zhan’s pulse go haywire, his heart beating erratic in his chest as the shifter’s close proximity. Yibo grits his teeth as if in response to Xiao Zhan’s biology. A line of tension scrapes across the were’s shoulders, and he twists his head sideways with a grimace, screwing his eyes shut. 

“Stop,” he growls out.

“Stop what?”

“I can hear your heartbeat, and you stink of fear. Calm down before you drive me insane.”

Xiao Zhan’s breath catches, but he does as Yibo says. Slows his breathing and works to regulate his pulse until some semblance of calm returns to him. As Xiao Zhan relaxes, so does Yibo, the tension in the younger man’s frame visibly melting off of the ailuranthrope’s shoulders.

Yibo offers him his hand, gloved in dark leather.

“Good, now are you going to stay on the ground all night or are you going to let me help you up.”

He holds his hand out once more, much more at ease, less fight or flight energy dripping off of him. This time Xiao Zhan accepts the offered hand and allows Yibo to pull him up by the wrist. The man guides him all the way to the sidewalk to stand under a nearby streetlamp. Not letting go of the witch’s wrist, he digs out his cell phone and starts drawing up a text message. Xiao Zhan, unable to shake out of the grip, rights himself as best as he can before reorienting himself to the world around him.

“Is he dead?”

“No, just out cold.”

Now that he isn’t quite so panicked, Xiao Zhan finds he is indeed able to grasp a small sense of his energy signature. The other attacker is out as well, struck dumb by Xiao Zhan’s witch bolt. He’ll be lucky if he wakes up with any memory of the last few days intact. Xiao Zhan turns back to Yibo as the man tucks his phone back into his pocket.

“Not to sound ungrateful for the help, but why were you following me?”

Yibo’s mouth quirks up in a lopsided shit-eating grin.

“Can’t a guy say thank you for a gift?”

Xiao Zhan quirks his eyebrows at him, not buying it for a second.

The man actually sighs, running a hand through his hair. The werecat digs a hand into his back pocket before holding out something for Xiao Zhan to see. It’s a badge, gold with blue lettering and well cared for. Xiao Zhan sees that badge and, while he should be relieved by the sight of it, he feels betrayed instead.

“You’re a cop.”

Yibo stows the badge back in his vest.

“Detective,” Wang Yibo corrects. “Supernatural Security Division.”

Xiao Zhan’s body goes cold and immediately starts to back away. This time Yibo lets him go.

“Good to know. Now kindly fuck off.”

Yibo’s eyes narrow in confusion.

“What?!”

“I said ‘fuck off’. I don’t deal with the SSD.”

He turns to storm up to his doorstep.

“Wait! Xiao Zhan!”

Xiao Zhan keeps going as though Yibo hadn’t even spoken, but Yibo’s hand finds his jacket and spins him back around. Xiao Zhan raises a hand to hit Yibo in the face, but the office catches his arm.

“Let go of me!”

“Someone is going to try and kill you!” shouts Yibo, looking him straight in the eye, and Xiao Zhan stills his struggles.

“What?”

“You’ve been marked by the Dongzhi Shouge ji.”

“Dongzhi Shouge ji?”

“Yes. Zhan-ge, I’m trying to protect you.”

The street lamp above Xiao Zhan’s head flickers and goes black, and for a moment, he imagines the sickening sound of the nü gui’s footsteps on the pavement somewhere to his left. Xiao Zhan whirls around and flings out enough magic to light the whole area. There is nothing there. Xiao Zhan’s witchlight goes out and the street light flicks back on.

Yibo whistles.

“I wish I could do that whenever the lights go out at my apartment.”

The witch’s hand is still outstretched, Xiao Zhan breathing heavy once more.

“Xiao Zhan,” calls Yibo. A hand slides over the witch’s shoulder. Xiao Zhan glances down and notices for the first time that Yibo is packing. A silver pistol at his hip, magically charged if the carved array on the handle is anything to go by. “Let me get you inside somewhere safe and preferably public. No sense staying out here in the cold.”

Xiao Zhan hesitates. The last time he’d gone to the SSD for help, he’d been spat on and humiliated. Yibo’s gloved hand slides down his clothed arm, curls around his wrist once more, and then draws back the fabric of his sleeve to reveal the frosted handprint. Yibo stares down at it, forlorn and contemplative as if he had been hoping the mark wouldn’t be there, as though the presence of the print is confirmation for something Xiao Zhan can’t even begin to understand.

“I know you don’t trust me. I get that I’ve technically been lying to you since I met you, and you’re freaked out, but please, Zhan-ge. I don’t want to find you dead tomorrow morning.”

Yibo’s plea is so earnest, the witch’s head spins. Does he really have a choice in his response?

Xiao Zhan drops his arm. It slaps against his thigh, boneless.

“Fine, alright. Where do you want to go?”

Yibo offers him a gentle smile at that.

“How about I buy you a coffee? Then, I can explain this whole thing to you.”

Coffee this late at night. Not that Xiao Zhan suspects he’ll be getting much sleep tonight anyway.

He sighs, shoulders sagging, weariness creeping into his bones.

“Make it a tea and I’ll do whatever you want, Lao Wang.”

Yibo’s close-lipped smile, despite the dreariness of the situation, is nearly as bright as his witchlight.

🀩❄🀩

Xiao Zhan sits nervously, chewing on his bottom lip and fiddling with the red thread bracelet on his wrist. On edge and nervous, the witch keeps glancing from where Yibo stands leaning against the pick-up counter to the shop window. There are festive drawings and characters painted on the glass in window chalk for the holiday season in reds and greens: Christmas ornaments, mistletoe, red and green steam buns, streamers, and snowflakes. The festival night is in full swing outside, the streets packed, and even inside the cafe, it’s a wonder Xiao Zhan managed to find a seat for them. It is noisy and stuffed full of chattering patrons but very, very public which had been the whole point according to the detective.

Xiao Zhan keeps an eye on the world outside the shop. Despite the multitude of people, human and supernatural alike, Xiao Zhan can still feel the lingering touch of the female ghost on his skin. He scans the mass of moving bodies, looking for a head of frozen black hair and pale water-logged skin. He’s so intent on his vigil that he doesn’t notice the other man return until he is already at the table.

“Here,” Yibo says, loud enough to be heard over the noise of the shop.

Xiao Zhan looks up at him, sees the green tea Yibo slides onto the table for him and smiles.

“Thanks.”

Yibo slides into the seat across from Xiao Zhan with a hot Americano in hand. Xiao Zhan takes the offered beverage and shifts it between his hands without taking a drink. He doesn’t meet Yibo’s gaze, but he can feel the man’s dark eyes checking him over. Xiao Zhan doesn’t know if he is looking for injuries or just studying him. After a long moment, Xiao Zhan hears the other man hiss and curse under his breath.

“I swear if this chain didn’t have the best Americano mix, I wouldn’t bother. They always heat the coffee way hotter than necessary, and I’m always too impatient to wait. Then when I do wait, I always forget about it, leave it for too long and it’s just cold.”

Yibo’s cheeks have hollowed out a bit, apparently nursing a new burn on his tongue, lips pursed around the tip of it now sticking out of his mouth like a kitten. It’s heartwarming how pouty the grown man can look, especially considering he just bore witness to the man practically ripping apart another nearly twice the size of his human form. Xiao Zhan extends hand forward.

“Here. Let me.”

Yibo gives him a surprised look, one eyebrow raised, tongue still sticking out. Xiao Zhan gives an insistent nod, and he slides the hot cup across the table. Xiao Zhan closes his hands around it and begins to hum. Between his hands, he can feel the liquid begin to churn in a gentle spiral as he feeds just the right amount of cooled air into the steaming cup. He does this for a few heartbeats before sliding the cup back to Yibo.

“That should be better.” 

Yibo’s look turns skeptical even as he takes the coffee in hands and raises it for another experimental sip. Said sip turns into an enthusiastic gulp, and when Yibo lowers the cup with a contented ‘ah’, a wide grin graces his handsome features.

“Wow! Can I have you do that all the time? It’s perfect.”

Xiao Zhan smiles, gently.

“It’s an easy enough casting. Your natural magic should allow you to do it yourself. All you’d need is a talisman.”

“But then it wouldn’t have Xiao Laoshi’s magic touch.”

No, he supposes it wouldn’t. Xiao Zhan shakes his head and raises his tea to his lips and takes a small sip, holding the warm liquid in his cheek before swallowing. He keeps his eyes averted as the grin falls from Yibo’s face.

“You have questions.”

“Just a few,” he says, sarcasm dripping from his lips like ink. 

If Yibo finds his response unwarranted, he does not express as much. He merely takes another draw on his coffee and then settles it on the table in a mirrored pose to Xiao Zhan, elbows on the table, both hands folded over the cup.

“Last year, I think it was in November, I was assigned grunt work for making our branch head look bad in front of the press. He put me on the task archiving unsolved cases from the last fifty years or so. Hours of copying files into computer databases and converting crime scene photos into a virtual hard drive.”

Xiao Zhan screws his face up. 

“That sounds unsavory.”

“En,” answers Yibo. “It was. Anyway, it was while I was sorting through the witch files that I noticed a pattern between eleven different unsolved murder cases, all taking place on the winter solstice, all of the victims defiled and drained of their magical essence. No one paid the cases any mind because all of the victims were either never identified or had no friends or family to speak of. The cases spanned a course of eleven years, one after the other after the other, a witch found dead the morning after Dongzhi.”

“No one bothered to find the person who killed them?”

Yibo shrugs.

“The trail goes cold, and without pressure from loved ones the case ends in the unsolved pile. It sucks, but it happens a lot more than any of us would like.” 

“That’s not surprising,” snips Xiao Zhan, disdainfully.

Yibo’s eyebrow twitches, not in offense necessarily, but if he is curious about the jab, he doesn’t ask.

“I was officially assigned the case in January after another witch was found murdered last year. I’ve been working to get to the bottom of who the Solstice Harvester is ever since.”

“You said you figured this out last November, so what you just decided to let them kill again last year?”

“No,” snaps Yibo. “Of course not. I took it to my superior, but because I’m one of our youngest officers, he threw out everything I found. Thought I was fishing for recognition or something stupid like that.”

Xiao Zhan shakes his head.

“So the head of your branch decided he didn’t care enough to listen and let an innocent die.”

“That’s about the shape of it. After I was assigned the case, I dug into the past victims, found IDs, friends, family, actually made the headway that my colleagues weren’t capable of making. The only link between them was that they had all visited or worked for The Untamed in the month leading up to their death.”

“So you went undercover?”

Yibo nods.

“I worked as a bartender in college. It was easy enough to get hired on. I was there for a little more than a month when you came along.”

“I’m not the only witch who’s visited The Untamed in the last few weeks though. How did you know they would come after me?”

“Because you have that.”

Yibo’s eyes roll down to his wrist. They settle over the area where the handprint is located for a moment before drifting back up to Xiao Zhan’s face. 

“11 out of 12 victims all had that mark save for the first, and her body was too far decomposed to tell if she had it or not.”

Xiao Zhan taps his fingers restlessly against the edge of his cup, purposefully ignoring the pale shape of the nü gui just standing on the other side of the window pane behind Yibo. The were is blissfully unaware of the spirit, and Xiao Zhan isn’t about to enlighten him on its presence.

“I can help you catch your killer.”

Yibo lifts an eyebrow at him as he takes another drink of coffee.

“There is a spell. I can find who you are looking for, and since I am apparently also an object of this person’s interest, it should work fairly easily.” 

“You’re kidding. It can’t be that easy.”

“Well, it isn’t. Since you're the one with more knowledge on this person, you’ll have to cast it with me, and it can be rather intense, but if you’re up for it and it works, you’ll save yourself a lot of time.”

He leaves effort out of the equation completely. Nothing about this casting will be effortless, and Xiao Zhan has only ever performed this particular casting once before. It had worked then. It can work now. And this time it isn’t just his reputation at stake, either.

“How come I’ve never heard of this before?” asks Yibo.

“Not all witches can cast it. Only someone with the same combination of passive abilities as me could manage it.”

“What passive abilities are those?”

Xiao Zhan searches Yibo’s face. He seems genuinely curious, seemingly wanting to know simply for the sake of knowing rather than wanting to manipulate the information in any way, but Xiao Zhan reminds himself that Yibo is not just the coy, handsome bartender who’s been giving him free drinks for the last two weeks. He is a detective, an officer of the law, and, it would seem, the only person standing between Xiao Zhan and a serial killer.

Xiao Zhan takes a quick scan of the room. There are a lot of emotions drifting around, some from Yibo, but he is making an effort to filter Yibo’s psyche out amongst the crowd.

“Do you see that couple over there?”

Xiao Zhan points his chin towards a young man and woman sitting close together in the far corner of the cafe’. They are college age, and the boy is looking at the girl like the sun wouldn’t shine if she were not before him. The girl for her part bites her lip and blushes at something he’s just said to her.

“Yeah,” responds Yibo, turning to look.

“He’s nervous. This is their first date and he wants to hold her hand, but he isn’t sure how to ask permission. She,” Xiao Zhan stresses tilting his gaze away from the pair. “...has been in love with him since they were children and wants to jump his bones, but she won’t make a move because she doesn’t want him to think she is a loose person. They both want the same thing but are too afraid to take the next step.”

Yibo turns back to Xiao Zhan, a thoughtful look on his face.

Xiao Zhan continues, closing his eyes and focusing his attention forward in time with the young couple as his focal point.

“Don’t worry though. They’ll figure it out eventually. Barring nothing terribly life-changing happens, they’ll be married with children in ten year’s time.”

“So you’re a clairvoyant.”

“And an empath. I more or less have control over the ability and usually try to filter people out, but if someone touches me, all bets are off, though premonitions are always random in occurrence.”

Yibo sinks further into his chair with a long exhale.

“You’re fucking kidding me.”

“Nope,” he says in English, heavily punctuating the ‘p’.

“I’ve never met a witch who is both an empath and a clairvoyant. That must be something else.”

Xiao Zhan snorts.

“It’s not everything it’s cracked up to be.”

“You could literally learn anything about someone just by touching them.”

“Not anything.”

“Well, maybe not anything, but no one would ever be able to lie to you.”

“Yeah, well, it kind of puts a damper on your love life when every time you have sex with someone you realize they only want a quick fuck and don’t give a damn about you.”

Yibo winces.

“Sorry, that must feel terrible.”

Xiao Zhan shrugs.

“Eh, at least, it means I don’t have to waste time with someone who will never love me if I don’t want to.”

Yibo reaches across the table. HIs fingers hover a hair’s breadth above Xiao Zhan’s wrist. 

“When I touched you earlier in the locker room, did you see anything?”

There is a long moment where Xiao Zhan holds perfectly still under Yibo’s near touch. He doesn’t even breathe, half expecting another vision to rip through him, but it doesn’t, the previous one echoing through his body as the pace of a phantom’s thrusts, but that’s probably less a magical happening and more his sense memory playing tricks on him.

Xiao Zhan looks at Yibo through his eyelashes, a mischievous smile playing in his eyes.

“I saw you fucking me.”

Yibo’s eyes darken, and Xiao Zhan lifts his head to give Yibo a sidelong look. Xiao Zhan laughs prematurely at a joke that hasn’t finished being told.

“Handcuffs, Lao Wang? You’re simply too handsome.”

Xiao Zhan fully expects the other man to shy away from him at that revelation, to hide away from a statement that is as salacious and primal as it is just a spoken truth, but the shifter doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t even blink. He merely hums, low and guttural in his throat, acknowledging Xiao Zhan’s brutal proclamation, and allows the tips of his fingers to caress the back of Xiao Zhan’s hand.

The laughter dies on his lips. 

Xiao Zhan finds himself swallowing down his own joke as Yibo’s psyche dances over his own. Less of an invasion and more of an introduction. With most anyone, the contact would make his teeth grind, feeling their psyche drill into him at the slightest touch like a battering ram trying to knock down his ramparts. Not here though. This touch is more like meeting someone for the first time and finding them likable. It’s like an old friend asking to come over for a visit, or allowing someone to hand feed you your favorite sweet, and before he even realizes it, Xiao Zhan’s magical core unfurls like a blooming lotus and welcomes the shifter with all of his most internal feelings into his very being.

Should he be worried at how easy it is to accept this man into his very essence?

“What do I feel like, ge?”

There is none of the extra noise of making a physical connection; just the feel of Yibo. First his most surface level emotions: calm, attentive, deadly serious, perhaps even a little anxious. Then the deeper, darker feelings, the ones that define a person’s personality: passion for the things he loves, an optimistic countenance, a long suffered loneliness… It’s the last one that makes Xiao Zhan want to cry. 

There’s something else there as well. Something Xiao Zhan can’t name. It burns so brightly, it’s like looking into the heart of a star, but it drifts over Xiao Zhan’s psyche so gently, all he can do is breathe and gasp and welcome the intensity of it, sinking into Xiao Zhan like a lover. 

He draws his hand back and out from under Yibo’s, holding back a shiver as the shifter’s fingers glide over his skin and then severing the connection.

“I’ve never met anyone who feels the way you do.”

Yibo nods, slowly, deliberately. A king of beasts, and Xiao Zhan sits at the center of his attention.

“So,” Xiao Zhan starts after centering himself with a sip of tea. “Is there somewhere you can think of that the killer would feel a connection to?”

Yibo blinks at him and the way Xiao Zhan has so mercilessly broken the atmosphere around them. Or maybe it's just the whole situation. You know… A serial killer on the loose and Xiao Zhan the next target.

“Yeah, I know a place. It’s not far.”

🀩❄🀩

Yibo has a motorcycle, and Xiao Zhan is loath to go anywhere near it, but when the werepanther hands him a helmet and in no uncertain terms tells him to get on, he obeys. Yibo makes another quick call to what Xiao Zhan’s assumes is his team, and then it’s a short drive to their destination, a nearby public park.

As Yibo stows the helmets in the seat compartment, his cell phone rings.

“You’re in place? ...Perfect. You know the signal. You see anyone enter the parameter, you lock them down.”

The were hangs up and turns to Xiao Zhan, extending a burlap sack to the witch, who takes it easily enough. All the items within are of his own careful choosing for this particular casting, picked up from Xiao Zhan favorite local magic shop on their way here.

“Where to, Laoshi?”

Yibo hesitates for just a moment, apparently taken aback by the formal address coming from someone older than him, but he recovers quickly enough, mumbling a quick “This way” as he moves past Xiao Zhan into the denser forest surrounding the park. The witch follows, carefully avoiding the icier patches of earth and gravel, until Yibo stops amidst a patch of bamboo where two shoots crisscross to form a standing ‘X’ over an expanse of ground that is mysteriously free of snow and grass.

Xiao Zhan moves closer to the patch of vacant earth and shivers at the textures that wash over him. Pain, desperation, and the festering feeling of fear.

“What is this place?”

“This is where we found Wen Xiangfei last year. A group of children had been playing in the thicket when one of them stumbled over the body. She’d been frozen into the ground right there under that set of bamboo in the middle of a drawn array designed to drain a victim of their magical essence.”

Xiao Zhan kneels down next to the frozen ground, so black it is almost reflective.

“What else?”

“Shouldn’t you be able to tell me?”

“Not too keen about living somebody’s death right this moment.”

“Her magic was drained completely from her body. Everything that made her a witch gone. There was also evidence of rape, though we were unable to collect any DNA.”

Xiao Zhan nods and then presses a hand into the tainted ground, bracing himself for a premonition but nothing comes. It just feels empty like a void. No doubt why the plants never grew back and the snow won’t even sit over this cursed grove.

“The killer’s array didn’t just drain the magic out of the witch. It drained it out of the very soil it was drawn over. This place is deader than dead.”

“Will this work then for what you need to do?”

Xiao Zhan looks over his shoulder to Yibo.

“It’s perfect.”

Where better to lure an energy scrub than into a black hole?

Xiao Zhan makes quick work of sketching out an array with an inkbrush and magnetic paint. Two interlocking triangles for heaven and earth, the characters for ‘find’ and ‘truth,’ and a central pattern of circles comprise the majority of the array, and Xiao Zhan draws a smattering of stars and spirals along the outskirts to act as numerological focal points for the numbers 3, 13, and 55.

When he finishes with the paint, he places a single candle in the center of the array before turning back to Yibo. The werepanther has been watching him work silently, leaning backwards into a thick fold of shoots, arms crossed over his chest, pensive and on guard. Xiao Zhan doesn’t quite know if this is because of the magic he is weaving or because of the ominous shadow lurking somewhere in the dark between the solstice lights, and he doesn’t ask. This is already a lot.

“You sure you’re alright with this?” asks the witch.

“I studied _Wu_ (巫) rituals in college.”

“That isn’t the same as participating in one.”

“I know what to expect.”

There is finality in the detective’s tone that shuts down further discussion, so Xiao Zhan simply gestures to the space opposite where he sits inside of the heaven triangle. Yibo steps into the offered space, careful not to disturb the chalk as he kneels across from Xiao Zhan.

“You should take off your gloves. You don’t have to touch me, but magic travels fastest through the palms.”

Yibo does as instructed. Xiao Zhan holds his hands out, palm up towards Yibo, and invites the other man to bring his own palms to hover over them.

“Okay, focus on what your goals are for the night. Pour everything you know about this asshole into the lure. What you want to know, what you want to accomplish, what you want to prevent. Let it all sit at the forefront of your mind. I’ll do the rest.”

Yibo nods.

The were’s eyes slide shut, waiting, but Xiao Zhan hesitates. He chews on his lip for a minute, two minutes, and then he reaches over and unravels the bracelet around his wrist. The sudden brightening of his internal magics shortens his breath. He sets his hands back under Yibo’s, and begins to funnel his power outward. It’s not much different from the spell he cast earlier at the lounge, but it is definitely more concentrated. He’s only just begun and already the invigorating flex of magic makes him lightheaded. The kind of vertigo that only comes when you close your eyes.

The candle between their knees lights as the first spellweave comes full circle.

He presses forward, letting the inside out and the outside in. The forest becomes his bones, the snow his breath, and the cold his blood as his magic seeps out into the ozone. Yibo’s heat, a mere foot from him, acts as a lighthouse, a place for him to return to, a hearthfire where he can warm himself from the cold once he’s found what he is looking for, who he is looking for. He sinks into the ground, his flesh merging with the cityscape, electricity and petroleum and the lingering miasma of pollution. Xiao Zhan disappears and becomes ether. He is everywhere and nowhere all at once. He is everyone and no one at the same time.

_What do I feel like, ge?_

_The Dongzhi Harvester_

_I don’t want to find you dead._

Yibo’s intention grounds him in the physical world. It keeps him from dissolving completely, an anchor keeping him from drifting into the void. It gives him the confidence to barrel forward.

Where are you?

What are you?

Who are you?

Why are you doing this?

He skirts over the skyline, a phantom in his own right as he dives into the veins and arteries of the city. He follows the bloodlines of Beijing as though the city itself were a living organism. Well, to a witch, a city is a living organism, another forest made of metal and concrete and sustained by the hopes and dreams of the people who call it home. He scours the city searching, seeking, summoning until he senses the killing intent.

It’s close. Closer than he ever could have imagined. 

A sudden shove at his incorporeal form sends him writhing upwards, and the witch’s eyes fly open to meet the werepanther’s startled gaze. Electricity surges around the array’s parameter. The spark of it must surprise his current partner in casting because Yibo’s hands clamp down on Xiao Zhan’s, and the present whites out.

_They share a kiss._

_It is neither a chaste first kiss or a high on each other precursor to sex. It isn’t the kind of kiss shared with a one night stand or a new lover. It isn’t the dirty meeting of orifices found in porn. It is none of those types of kisses. No... This kiss is ease and familiarity with long-held desire and hard won knowledge rolled into one. A single kiss amongst thousands of kisses shared between them. The kind of passionate joining between a couple who has learned and relearned one another so well that this kind of kissing is as easy as breathing. The kind of lazy making out that becomes more and more spartan as the years together increase but remains so savory that it is an indulgence neither party could ever afford to neglect for long._

_They are fucking._

_Yibo’s hands bruise into his hips. He breathes, hot and heavy, into Xiao Zhan’s ear. While the other man thrusts erratically into him just how Xiao Zhan likes it, he bucks backwards, fucking himself on the shifter’s cock as best as he can from his prone position, hands bound behind his back, face down in the mattress, and ass up just for Yibo. He offers himself like a trussed up dish, and Yibo feasts on him like a man starved even though this is a dance they’ve practiced well, every touch choreographed to perfection to bring each other to the mountaintop._

_They make love._

_Xiao Zhan groans as Yibo dips into him. The witch arches back, pulling on the handcuffs keeping him anchored to the bed, as Yibo grinds his hips forward into him. Legs akimbo and arranged around the other man’s torso just how Yibo wants him, Xiao Zhan rides the feel of his lover working to bring him to completion with unhurried drags of his body over him. Large hands trace over him with knowledge even he couldn’t hope to ever gain of his own body. Xiao Zhan whines in the back of his throat and Yibo dips his head down to placate him with a kiss.There is sweat and spit and so, so much love in the space between their bodies, the world could go up in flames from it._

_They cuddle._

_Curled up into each other, stated and happy, the sheets cooling under and over them, Xiao Zhan drags lazy fingertips over Yibo’s exposed chest. The faintest hint of magic makes the other man laugh and swat his hand away. It tickles. Xiao Zhan gets up, affronted for being swat at, only to be dragged back into bed by the overgrown feline who curls his tail - it’s a new moon, tonight, and Yibo’s partial shift helps stave off the need for a four-legged run - around Xiao Zhan’s hip, tucking itself into the fabric of the briefs he pulled on after they were finished._

_They sleep._

_Xiao Zhan’s head rests on Yibo’s shoulder, a hand tucked into the waistband of the pajama bottoms that sit low on the shifter’s hips. Yibo’s ear twitches as a noise comes from the bedroom door. Xiao Zhan stirs as Jianguo jumps up onto the bed to curl up at their feet. A moment later a small voice sounds through the darkness, “Baba? I had a nightmare.” Xiao Zhan lifts the blanket as a much smaller body crawls into bed between them._

_They live._

Xiao Zhan is hurled back into his body like a meteor strike to find he is no longer sitting across from Wang Yibo. He is instead lying on his side all but tangled with the other man. Said man is currently gasping up at the stars with the same dazed expression he’s sure is on his own face. Yibo blinks, coming back further into himself, winds his arms tighter around Xiao Zhan, so tight Xiao Zhan is struggling to take a deep breath, and after another moment of catching his bearings, says:

“What was that?”

Yibo blinks at him again as he asks the question, slow like a cat, pupils shuttered to slits and reflecting green in the moonlight.

“You saw that!”

Yibo surges forward, and suddenly Xiao Zhan finds his lips under arrest, claimed by the ailuran in a first kiss that has more electricity behind it than Xiao Zhan has ever experienced.

The witch pulls back with a gasp.

“Yibo?”

The man’s forehead is pressed firmly into Xiao Zhan’s as the were breathes, ragged labored breaths as he too tries to recenter himself.

“Xiao Zhan, tell me what that was.”

He feels dazed, like he is still out of his body, drifting through the city on a cloud of magic.

“I don’t know.”

“The hell you don’t,” snarls Yibo, calling Xiao Zhan’s deflection.

“I’ve never had a premonition like that before.”

Yibo’s eyes narrow, and his lips part as though to speak, but before he can say anything, another voice rips through the quiet around them.

“厄尔德里奇爆炸!!” 

Xiao Zhan pushes Yibo sideways as a bright bolt of power hurtles towards Yibo’s back. Xiao Zhan throws his hands up, a flex of his own magic throwing the blast off target. Another surge of magic yanks Xiao Zhan up into the air by his ankles.

“Who’s got a kiss for the wickedy witch?”

The female ghost’s song echoes through the forest, and her face appears before him with a wail. A gunshot fires, and she disappears once again. Xiao Zhan turns to see Yibo back on his feet, weapon in hand. The were is pale as the ghost he just chased away, eyes wide with horror.

“What the fuck!”

“诛戮!”

A killing hex sparks towards the detective, nearly frozen in fear. 

“Yibo!”

He turns and fires at the curse, but he’s too slow.

“逆转”

At Xiao Zhan’s command, the spell reverses, changing direction and barreling straight back towards its original caster. The hooded figure is struck dead center in the chest and goes flying backwards. Xiao Zhan lands on his back with a thud. The wind knocked out of him and his head floating from the blood and magic rush.

That’s when the nü gui pounces on him. Her undead hands clench into his shirt collars and shake him back and forth as she screams into his face. He sees Yibo stand and race towards him. 

“Xiao Zhan!”

But when he reaches them, the Nü gui shrieks at Yibo, sending a hand out in his direction. An unseen force shoves Yibo backwards so hard he hits a copse of bamboo with a sickening smack, and his human shape vanishes into a shifting void. 

“Yibo!”

He lands on all fours at the opposite end of the grove, shaking himself and growling as the forced transformation heals any serious injury even as the panther falls over onto his left flank. Xiao Zhan raises his hands to her face and begins to chant ‘Rest’ into the fiber of her soul. The ghost shudders under his magic, backing up and trying to get away from him, but he rises with her, keeping the spell active, weaving it into her spirit the way you knit love into a sweater or stir care into a bowl of warm soup. It sinks over her like a warm blanket, and slowly the ghost’s eyes slide shut, her shrieks quieting.

The spell spirals around the woman’s spirit until she fades into the cold, a whisper left to float on the wind in solace.

So immersed is Xiao Zhan in putting the restless spirit to rest that he doesn’t notice the other spell caster get up until another body jumps towards him. He raises his hands in defense, stalling the person’s descent long enough for Yibo to come crashing into them. The pair of them roll into a snowbank, and his hooded attacker stands no chase against the large feline.

Xiao Zhan doesn’t drop his hands until Yibo’s sleek feline body emerges from the tangle of limbs, green eyes flashing in the dark as he studies Xiao Zhan. A long moment stretches between the witch and the werecat until Yibo bows his head to Xiao Zhan, a resounding ‘thank you’ echoing through the grove without ever making a sound as the beams of several flashlights make their way through the thicket.

Xiao Zhan, hardly paying any mind to his surroundings as Yibo’s team surrounds them, closes his eyes and allows himself to float.

🀩❄🀩

Da Zhangwei, he reminds himself, is the name of the lone witch on Yibo’s team. He’d approached Xiao Zhan the moment he’d entered the scene and sensed the wash of magical residue still humming in the air. The statement Xiao Zhan manages to give is blurry at best. The other witch pulls Yibo, now on two legs and human shaped, aside immediately after. He is speaking to the were very seriously. Hushed tones that Xiao Zhan can’t make out from where he is standing with Qian Feng as the vamp checks him over.

“You look good. Not even a scratch on you that I can find. You’re still resonating though...sleep...give a statement...Wang Han…some time tomorrow...”

Xiao Zhan nods blearily as the man speaks.

“Do you have someone...take you home?”

“I’ll take him,” calls Yibo, walking over, apparently finished with his conversation with Da Zhangwei. The werepanther’s palm is solid on his wrist, grounding and sure where Xiao Zhan is still way up in the clouds from the amount of magic he just expended.

“You sure, Yibo-didi?”

“Yeah,” answers Yibo. “I’ve got him.”

Xiao Zhan’s lips are dry. His eyes slide shut as he licks them. Yeah, Yibo certainly does have him. The echoes of the premonition he had earlier in the evening pulse through his blood, riling up something more...mmm...primal in the pit of his stomach. His hands are so big. They would leave beautiful bruises.

As wound up as he is, the world seems to kind of drift around him.

“Alright,” answers the other detective, a knowing smile on his face. “Don’t forget to call Han-ge when you get home…” There is more being said, but the words don’t reach Xiao Zhan, who is dazedly studying the line of the younger man’s throat. 

“Thanks, Feng-ge,” says Yibo, turning back to Xiao Zhan. Yibo’s voice brings him back to… Well, it’s something to focus on other than the buzzing between his ears at least. He wonders what it will sound like growling in his ear. Qian Feng says something to Xiao Zhan directly, but the witch barely processes what that is before Yibo guides him back the way they came in, his hand a searing presence on his lower back.

The drive to Xiao Zhan’s place is a blur of sound and wind and the warmth of Yibo’s body in front of him on the bike. Yibo keeps a firm hold on his arm as he pulls him off the machine, into the building, and up the stairs. Xiao Zhan’s hands move but he doesn’t feel them as he unlocks the door to his flat. It opens far enough for Jianguo to dart out with a loud mew. Xiao Zhan smiles as his familiar winds through his feet. She even greets Yibo, who gives the cat a bit of a bewildered look before bending to give her a small pat on the head which she leans up into. Even his cat is strangely attracted to the Were.

“Jianguo,” he whines at the cat, who gives him a solid impression of a teenager rolling her eyes at him.

By the time Xiao Zhan focuses back in on his surroundings, Yibo has already straightened to standing. He looks up at Xiao Zhan with the most profound expression, and for a moment, Xiao Zhan wishes they were touching so he could feel what he is feeling. Those lips start to move and Xiao Zhan hears the words seconds after they’ve been said.

“Thank you for your help tonight.”

Suddenly or maybe an eternity later, Yibo rises up and pressed their mouths together in a kiss so chaste it’s physically painful. The were’s lips are plush against his own, and the flood of Yibo’s bare emotions, unfiltered elation and relief, rolls over him. In his already delirium drenched state, it is so easy to claim those feelings for his own, wrap them around his own magic driven euphoria and amplify them back and let common sense fade into the background. 

“Goodnight, Zhan-ge.”

The words dance over the witch’s lips, silky and cool. Yibo backs away, and with him goes the whole central axis of Xiao Zhan’s world, so disorienting and more painful than anything else Xiao Zhan has ever experienced. It leaves him bereft and drowning in a sea of raw magic. 

Yibo offers Xiao Zhan a small, respectful bow, before pivoting over his left shoulder to head back out. He reaches with both hands to stop him.

“Wait,” he says, hands clamping down into Yibo’s leather jacket.

Yibo turns to look at him, eyes like melted obsidian in the dim light of the walkway. There is a green otherworldly glow in their depths. The words escape the witch’s lips before he can properly evaluate them, a tangled tumble of overexposed want.

“Why don’t you come in?”

Before Xiao Zhan can fully process what has just come out of his mouth, one of those big palms rises to cradle the back of his head. 

“Yibo,” he gasps.

Yibo pulls him down, and Xiao Zhan goes, oh, so willingly, hands grasping the shorter male’s hips. Yibo’s scent, heady and addictive like trees and rain and the outdoors mixed with a hint of exhaust and dampened cement, enfolds him. The wild texture of an urban jungle embedded in the very flesh of an apex predator. The magic singing through his veins relishes the hidden strength in the were’s hands and arms and body, the lure of the ailuranthrope. Isn’t he the one who should be casting enchantments? He feels like he’s been bewitched. 

“Xiao Zhan, you’re...mpf.”

Yibo never gets to finish as Xiao Zhan kisses him again. Yibo’s lips part with a surprised gasp, and Xiao Zhan wastes no time delving in for a dip. He licks into Yibo’s mouth, nips along the detective’s lips, and feels the drag of teeth against his own mouth in response. The taste of him is another thing entirely. Danger and sin incarnate. He could fly into the clouds on this feeling alone. 

Even in his human form, Yibo’s teeth are sharp. Xiao Zhan presses his tongue too hard against a sharp canine; he hisses as blood wells from the tiny cut. A hand fists into his hair and rips him back.

When he opens his eyes, he is looking at the ceiling, mouth agape and Yibo’s growls echoing in his ears as the were attacks the line of his throat. Xiao Zhan twists himself around to find Yibo’s eyes flashing like a predator’s in the dark. Xiao Zhan’s tongue peeks out between his lips. Dilated pupils follow the motion, and the younger man surges forward to conquer the witch’s mouth.

He hears Jianguo “eep” as his body slams into the door frame with a bang, and he barely has the mental acuity to think a rushed ‘sorry’ in her direction as Yibo’s hands find his sides, sliding down to cup his ass. Xiao Zhan’s hands, still tingling with power, race down Yibo’s torso, frantically searching for skin, finding the outline of the man’s pecs and abdominals through the layers of clothing. God, he wants him. All of him. 

Yibo groans, low in the back of his throat, as Xiao Zhan yanks him forward, one leg lifting to wind around the younger man’s hip. Yibo’s arousal is evident through his clothing, and the witch grinds down. Xiao Zhan presses even closer, rolling his hips in imitation of a dance best performed horizontally, rutting against the man as Yibo’s moaned responses fall around him. 

He wants the were to fuck him. To lose all control and tear him to pieces.

“I want you to destroy me.”

But before Xiao Zhan can deepen their contact further, Yibo’s hands grip violently into his hips and push him back into the wall. Stars race in front of his eyes as the back of his skull hits the wood. Dizzy and loving the rough handling, he is about to pull up and sink down into the man’s grip when Yibo pulls back with a lurch, ripping his lips off of Xiao Zhan as though burned and pulling Xiao Zhan’s head back by the hair.

“Stop moving.”

The command comes so suddenly that every cell in Xiao Zhan’s body screams to a stop. A chill, feral and entirely unrelated to the cold in the air, winds down the witch’s spine as something other than arousal colors his lust, makes it more poignant, more intoxicating. He shudders as adrenaline floods his system. His heart hammers against his ribcage as fear and lust duel for dominance over his senses, and as suddenly as he stopped moving, he is falling over the edge so fast, he scrambles to find purchase somewhere.

His hands shake as his fingers dig into Yibo’s shirt.

“Hah! Ah! I can’t. I don’t… I- Yibo!”

He tries to buck up, he wants to feel Yibo’s arousal - because he is aroused, there is no doubt of that - but another shove backward bruises pain into his scapula, enough to burn away some of the haze. 

“I said stop moving!” snarls Yibo, voice sharp and commanding.

Punched into him by the harshness of the were’s grip on his waist, awareness forces him to start thinking again. His heart stops as he recognizes through his delirium the danger that is Yibo’s body pressed flush against him, eyes flashing feral and hungry. The inexplicable knowledge of being hunted, of being prey, washes through him like a premonition, thrilling and disquieting. Yibo’s face hovers by Xiao Zhan’s exposed throat, and the witch is intimately aware of the harsh breathing in his ear.

Yibo’s body is tense under his hands. Sharp teeth skate over his pulse point, and for a moment he wonders if restraint and restriction will lose against primal instinct, if Yibo will bite down on his jugular. Xiao Zhan exhales, and his breath hangs frozen in the air like ice. He wonders if Yibo will rip his throat out like a wild animal. If the panther will eat him alive, devour him, swallow him whole and leave nothing left for even the ghouls to feast on. He doesn’t even know if he would fight against him if Yibo decided to kill him right then and there. Dread and desire in equal measure. 

His mind is so foggy, so muddled and confused as Yibo breathes him in once more, he barely registers when Yibo moves away.

“You’re too magic drunk to consent, witch.”

The fog in Xiao Zhan’s mind lifts somewhat only to lay right back over him too heavy to shake off completely.

“No, I’m not,” he starts to protest, pulling on Yibo more, but a hand winds around his throat.

“Yes, you are.” 

Inarguable, but through the pleasure zinging through his senses, he wants to argue back anyway, eyes trailing down to Yibo’s lips, wonders what the consequences might be if he were to bite them. Yibo’s show of domination has him leaking in his jeans. He’s so hard and aching he thinks he could die. Hell death would be a mercy. 

Yibo’s nostrils flare at the spike in his aroused scent, and the hand around his throat tightens. Xiao Zhan gasps.

“Xiao Zhan, I swear to the heavens, if you make yourself any more tempting, neither of us will walk away from this in one piece. I refuse to be another asshole who took advantage of you.”

Xiao Zhan reels backwards as though slapped, lucidity rubbing its way back into him like a blister, stinging and raw. He releases his grip on Yibo’s clothing, and in turn Yibo’s hand around his throat loosens. Fuck! He is drunk. Chang'e! He is so far gone on his own pool of power, he can’t think straight.

“Open the door, Zhan-ge, slowly, and do not turn your back on me.”

The command rumbles up from Yibo’s chest and into Xiao Zhan’s very core. Fight or flight. Dread and desire. Life or death. In this moment, Yibo is as much a person as he is a wild animal, and he is crowding so closely into Xiao Zhan that the witch holds his breath as he carefully maneuvers himself to do as he’s told. 

The door creaks open. Xiao Zhan can see Jiangou’s eyes gleaming at him in the darkness, even his familiar is on edge. The fur on her back is on end and she is arched up and hissing at the other, much larger feline.

Yibo’s eyes trace down to the small animal, and Jianguo stares right back at him for a long tense moment. Several seconds pass between the two felines, and then Jianguo relaxes. A long slow blink towards Yibo, the last thing she does before she settles back on her haunches. Yibo turns his attention back to Xiao Zhan.

“Back up, carefully, ge. And keep your eyes on me.”

Xiao Zhan swallows thickly around the mess of warring emotions caught in his throat. Every fiber of Yibo’s being is coiled, wound so tight, Xiao Zhan doesn’t dare disobey. Yibo crowds him backwards. Xiao Zhan lifts one foot and then the other over the threshold. Yibo does not follow him across. Instead, the were’s hands grip hard into the doorframe so hard Xiao Zhan can hear the wood splinter.

Disappointment...

Xiao Zhan’s pupils are still dilated from the depth of the magic he has channelled this night. He feels unhinged, out of control, hot and cold all at once. Insane for how much he wants those strong hands to claw into him and rip him apart. Yibo’s eyes glint green in the darkness, a threat, a promise, a warning, an offer.

“Go to bed, witch, before you submit yourself to something I don’t think you’re ready for.”

His pulse beats hot and heavy in his own ears, and he hears the groan of wood as Yibo’s hands tighten impossibly on the wood frame. The man’s eyes screw shut and his teeth grind down as his jaw clenches.

Can Yibo hear his heart racing? Probably.

Xiao Zhan sucks down air lest the whimper escape his lips.

“Close the door, Zhan-ge.”

He nods, dazedly, his every fiber focused on obeying this man before, dangerous and enticing as he is. Yet still his body does not move. His aura is already wanton for the other male’s heat, his magic practically clawing to get out and wind itself around the were until the space between them implodes like a nebulous.

“Close the door, Xiao Zhan.” 

This time the words are more growl than spoken language.

Xiao Zhan watches, as though outside himself, as he follows through on the command. The door clicks shut on the panther, and the witch crumbles to the floor, panting and on the brink of losing himself completely. He stays there for a long time clenching at his core, trying to reign his magic back into a stable place, breathing and trying not to cry. 

He was magic drunk - is magic drunk.

It’s been so long since he used that much magic, he hadn’t even realized. Like an addict breaking sobriety, he’d lost himself in it, revelled in the high and nearly pulled someone into the vortex with him.  
Goddess above, he’d been begging for the panther like a bitch in heat.

Bereft and aching, he wrestles with himself and suffers through the effects of a magical high alone. An act he has not had to undertake alone in a very, very long time. It was always so much easier with some sexual partner or other there to bring him down, to act as a temporary conduit while his body realigns its meridians but not all of them partners he would have selected were he in his right mind.  
It’s how he’d ended up in Beijing, needing to remake himself after one of his colleagues had taken advantage of him post-show. The pictures that had been released to the public had nearly destroyed his entire life. It would have too, if he had just rolled over and allowed it, but no. He used his witchcraft to expose his own company’s hand in trying to destroy him. Needless to say, the company had folded from the shame of the scandal being turned back on them, but it was too late. Xiao Zhan’s life in Chongqing, his hometown, was already compromised.

He’s been running from the shadows of that incident ever since. It’s why he made the decision to bind himself. If he couldn’t call forth the vast pool of his magic, he couldn’t lose control like this, wouldn’t leave himself exposed to having anonymous sex with faceless or not so faceless men and women.

Of course it would be the solstice night that would force him to break that binding to defend himself and a near complete stranger - a man who was kind and fierce, soft and passionate at once, a man who he might’ve entertained the idea of getting to know better - against a vengeful spirit and the necromancer who summoned her.

Eventually Jianguo, his sweet, sweet familiar Jianguo, pads up to him. She sets a knowing paw against the back of his hand and helps him recenter himself.

Jianguo meows at him in her usual high-pitched tone. A call for him to return and regroup, so he does. He picks himself off the floor, throws himself under scalding hot water for a shower, and then settles himself in bed. Jianguo curls up on his hip, her weight a comfort and an anchor tethering him to the real world, lest he drift away to some other plane of existence. In the morning, when the solstice magic is further away and he is more in control, he’ll have to rebind himself.

He waves the lights of his home out, leaving only the warm fire of the yule log in his chimney as a sentinel against any other unwelcome guests and misfortunes, and in the darkness shrouding his bed, Xiao Zhan sobs himself to sleep clenching tight at the bracelet around his wrist even if its magic is now null and void.

Around him, the solstice night stretches on. Snow continues to fall outside his window, and the shadows pull at the corners of the room, innocuous and pretending to hold their own secrets. Jianguo stirs briefly, getting up and padding her way into the bathroom as the cuckoo clock in the kitchen begins to gently crow the hour.

The log, still burning in his fireplace and keeping watch over his house, extinguishes by the will of some invisible hand.

Xiao Zhan breathes, quietly snoring even as the temperature of the house falls. His breath fogs in the cold air of his darkened apartment. There is a small sound that tickles his awareness: Jianguo probably getting ready to jump back up into the bed. Another sound, heavier, darker, inspires a frown to crest over his brow. The wind whistles against the doors of the balcony and for a moment Xiao Zhan dreams of the skipping song about kisses and “wickedy witches.”

“Jianguo, what are you doing?” he murmurs when he hears a scratching sound.

Xiao Zhan’s eyes snap open as a hand closes over his mouth. His scream muffled as dark volatile magic swirls around him and his attacker.

🀩❄🀩

Part 2 - Wang Yibo  
December 7th - The Untamed Lounge - Two weeks before the solstice.

🀩❄🀩

The venue stinks of humans.

It always does even through the copious amounts of plum blossoms and winter hazel hanging from the rafters and decorating the tables. Yibo doesn’t complain about it, the itchy concoction of sweat and perfume and cologne and aftershave and cigarettes. He knows that the later into the evening it gets, the more the stink will make him want to sneeze, the more the LED lanterns will hurt his eyes, and the shorter his patience will become with the endless stream of flirty customers, but ‘tis the season for joy and good cheer, right?

“Explain to me how a rookie detective has the balls to defy my deadline!”

He’d snuck away from the bar to take the call coming through on his SSD-issued cell, and already he is wishing he had just ignored the phone call, but the ungodly shouting on the other end gifts him with the stirrings of a fresh migraine.

“You’ve been undercover for over a month, Detective Wang, and you are telling me that you have zero leads. How much more of my time and resources are you planning to waste on this little project of yours?”

So much for spreading wealth and good cheer…

“Chief Zhang, I know you said you wanted me out of here by the fifth, but I respectfully ask that you give me more time.”

“I have other cases that need solving, Wang Yibo. Cases that are more important than a supposed witch killer.”

Yibo resists the urge to sigh even if his branch head is yelling so loudly that Yibo can visualize the spittle flying from his loosened jaw. He rolls his eyes instead, leaning his head back against his locker. He is presently tucked away into a corner of the staff locker room at the Untamed Lounge with his cell phone pressed to his ear. He is already dressed in his bartending uniform and is just waiting for the man to stop shouting so he can get back to doing his damn job.

“Chief, I know that you are frustrated by the standstill in the case,” Wang Han’s voice is steady on the other side of the phone line where he stands in the same room as the chief. “But Wang Yibo has made more headway than anyone else has in the last twelve years. I believe it is in Yibo’s power to solve this before another person dies.”

“Another witch, Wang Han. Another witch. A meaningless magical dumpster that will probably get themselves blown up anyway by their own spellwork.”

“Captain will remember that our oath is to all the citizens of Beijing and China regardless of race, creed, or supernatural status. Your prejudice does not change that fact.”

“And if I give the extension, what then? It’s two weeks until the solstice. You think he can close the case in that time.”

“I think Yibo is more than capable of catching the Dongzhi Shouge ji. In fact, I’m willing to bet my pension on it.”

“Han-ge,” starts Yibo, but the chief cuts him off.

“Is that so, Wang Han?”

“I would not have said as much if I didn’t mean it.”

There is silence on the other end of the line, and Yibo can just imagine the stare down that must be going on between the district chief and Yibo’s branch officer. This extension could mean the difference between stopping a killer and finding another body, and if the chief actually granted it, it would be down to Yibo to get the job done.

“Chief Zhang, please. I humbly request any time you are willing to give us. I promise you it will not be wasted. Were I set before you, I would bow my head in deference.”

There is a gruff sound on the other side of the line, like the man just huffed into his own moustache.

“I’ll give you until Dongzhi.”

Yibo’s eyes close in relief.

“But mark my words, both of you. If you fail and another body turns up in my morgue, and I end up having to cool another press fire, I will have both of your jobs. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir,” answers Yibo.

“Good, now get to work. I don’t want to hear from you again until you have someone in handcuffs.”

The call drops, and Yibo punches his fist into the locker.

“Damn it!”

“Hey, you alright?”

Yibo’s phone flies out of his hand. He whirls around as it skids to a halt at a pair of booted feet attached to the longest legs Wang Yibo has seen in his entire life. He follows the long line of those limbs up to find the person who startled him. And holy hell, he is tall. The newcomer wears an oversized sweater over slim fit jeans. He has glasses on and a fluffy beanie on his head with a matching scarf that looks handmade. 

All of it somehow manages to frame up the most effortlessly attractive visage Yibo has ever seen. High cheekbones dusted pink from the wind chill, clear tanned skin, dark, almond-shaped eyes behind wide-framed glasses, and the most biteable pair of lips decorated with a single mole at the lower left corner.

“Sorry. Sorry!”

He only has a moment to see it though before the other man ducks down to pick up Yibo’s phone. Yibo’s phone which is still very much unlocked and showing classified police information.

Yibo nearly dives down to snatch the phone out of the stranger’s hand before he can get a glimpse of anything. In his mad scramble to reclaim the device, his hand nearly completely enfolds the other’s gloved hand, and he jerks back with his own mumbled apology. The newcomer shakes his head and extends him the phone, locking the screen for him as he does.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you!”

“No, that’s alright. Thanks,” he says, taking back the cell.

The stranger smiles then, and the sight of it is so utterly enchanting Yibo’s heart skips a beat. What the hell?

“Here,” he says, and then lightly nudges Yibo’s shoulders until he gets the incentive to stand back up. “The boss told me to change here. I didn’t think anyone else would still be getting ready.”

“Um...I’m not,” he replies, untangling his tongue from his throat. “I was just taking a phone call.”

“Oh. I didn’t interrupt, did I?”

“No, no. I was just finishing up.”

The man nods. He walks up to a nearby locker and pulls out a slip of paper from his pocket to enter in the code. The metal door opens with a click and he sets his bag on the ground where he begins to pull out a few changes of clothing and a cosmetic bag.

Yibo shifts from one foot to the other, unsure if he should introduce himself or just leave the man to it. That’s when he spots the red woven bracelet around the man’s wrist. A charm? He shifts closer and inhales. He doesn’t pick up anything telling. There is a fresh musk lingering on the man’s clothes that must be his cologne. Underneath that is a clean warm spice reminiscent of some herbal and sweet.

“Xiao Zhan,” calls another voice just as Yibo is about to say something, and Yibo recognizes one of the entertainment coordinators as she enters the room. A smart all black ensemble in hand. “Here’s your outfit for the night. Make sure you drop it off with YangYang before you leave.”

“Got it, Qing-jie. Xiexie.”

“And don’t forget to finish your paperwork by tomorrow. We need that if you’re going to be a permanent fixture around here.”

“A-jie has too much confidence in me. This is just my trial night.”

The woman looks the man up and down.

“Oh, I don’t think you’ll have a problem, Zhan-di. Just do exactly what you did at your interview.”

“Xiexie,” says the man with a bow as the older woman turns on her heel to leave.

“You’re a performer,” says Yibo, and the man turns to look at him almost startled like he forgot Yibo was there.

“A singer, yes. Though they asked me to do some fortune telling too, not that I’m much for reading tarot cards.” He hangs the outfit up in the locker and then looks fully at Yibo. “I’m Xiao Zhan. It’s my first night.”

There is a genuine kindness in his bearing that Yibo hasn’t ever felt from anyone, and for a moment Yibo questions whether or not he is being swayed by a spell, but there is no pulse of magic on the air. No shift of ether.

“Wang Yibo. I’m one of the bartenders.”

“Nice to meet you, Lao Wang.”

Xiao Zhan extends a hand, and Yibo takes it. The marked scent of earthen spice and forest is as unmistakable as the thrum of magic under the man’s skin. This singer is a witch. A strong one at that considering the amount of churning force Yibo can sense in him through the mere span of a handshake.

“You too, Lao Xiao.”

Shit! This is the first witch to come under employment at The Untamed since Yibo began undercover. The first witch to put themselves directly into the line of fire on this case. 

Xiao Zhan turns back to his locker.

“Listen, when you’re done with your set, why don’t you stop by the bar. All of the employees get a drink on the house at the end of the night.”

That’s a lie. They aren’t supposed to give anyone free drinks, but if he can keep a closer eye on the witch, it can only serve to help him find his perp and keep the witch alive. Xiao Zhan, of course, takes his offer as something else.

“Ah, but I would hate to shift Lao Wang’s attention from the ladies. They must all swoon for the privilege of tipping such a handsome didi.”

Xiao Zhan winks at him, and if Yibo were anyone else, he might have hit the ground in a faint at the blatant flirtiness of the gesture. But Yibo is a cool guy. He knows what he looks like, and he is not above using that to his advantage when it comes to getting the job done. And besides, this man is rather cute.

“I get by,” he answers, tilting his head back with a smirk. “Though when they get a glimpse of you, they might just forget all about me. They’ll gobble you right up.” 

Yibo could swear the man’s eyes trace him up and down quickly before looking away. And are his ears redder than they were earlier? Oh yes. Definitely cute.

“I’m alright. Not as handsome as you.”

Yibo’s smirk turns into a genuine smile for half a second before he excuses himself back to the bar and wishes the singer good luck on his first performance. He’s a little warm by the time he gets back to serving the different customers vying for a drink, but as he works, he cools his heels, putting the flirtation out of mind until Xiao Zhan steps onto the raised stage at the head of the dancefloor.

Mile long legs accentuated by the most sinfully fitted black slacks Yibo has ever seen lead up to a simple silk black blazer and turtleneck that perfectly frame the man’s figure. Trim and sleek with a cinched waist that flares deliciously out to the man’s hips and buttocks. The kind of figure Yibo would never have suspected to be hidden underneath that oversized sweater he was wearing earlier. Around his neck is a simple necklace providing a tantalizing flash of silver. And his face… He’d already had handsome features, but like this: Glasses gone and hair gently tousled and make up accenting his features. Holy fuck! The man is gorgeous.

And if that isn’t enough, Xiao Zhan takes the microphone, makes the cheesiest introduction Yibo has ever seen - something about an electrical generator that is terribly endearing - and starts to sing.

By the time the witch makes his way to the bar later that evening, Yibo is already in love.

🀩❄🀩

Dongzhi Festival Night

🀩❄🀩

He hasn’t suffered such primal dysphoria since he was a teenager.

Yibo takes a moment to get a grip on himself, standing outside of Xiao Zhan’s apartment door, a mere twitch away from tearing down the door and taking the witch for himself, unsure what the consequences would be if he had let himself go. In that moment, he’d wanted to devour the man sexually, viscerally, and inextricably, sink his teeth into that delectable flesh and lose himself completely. But he’d had no clue whether he’d wanted to fuck or eat the witch, gorge himself on sweet moans and beaded sweat or hot blood and pained screams, and that had been the most terrifying experience he’s ever had.

Long moments pass, and he does not release the battered door frame until he is absolutely certain he won’t beast out right then and there. Break down the door and leave the outcome of the following moments to chance and Xiao Zhan’s ability to fend off a feral werepanther. And considering how high the witch had been on his own magic, there wouldn’t have been much of a fight.

He can sense Xiao Zhan’s body through the door, curled up on the ground and leaning heavily against the wood. He can hear him too, and the sounds he makes are devastating. There is a soft padding of paws on the ground and a small meow from the little housecat he’d seen earlier. His lip quirks up at the way the little thing had tried to warn him away earlier. 

Eventually Xiao Zhan moves away from the door, and with him goes the tantalizing smell of him. After that it gets easier for Yibo to reign himself in.

When he finally does deem himself fit to move, his fingers crack as he releases the wood. Indents of his hands left in the wake of his near lack of control. He steps back and away and practically runs from the lingering smell of the witch’s arousal and want. He lets himself fall onto all fours in the street, shifting into his feline form, and bounds away towards his own apartment.

He hadn’t thought too much of Da Zhangwei’s advice when he pulled him aside earlier, but Da Zhangwei’s words echo back in his head, now.

_“I did some research on Xiao Zhan after you called to confirm he was our perp’s next target. He’s an empathic witch with clairvoyant abilities. He moved here from Chongqing roughly six months ago.”_

_“Yes” replied Yibo. “He told me all of that.”_

_“Did he tell you why he moved?”_

_Yibo could only shake his head at the time._

_“Xiao Zhan was a local celebrity. A singer with an enchanting voice and even more spellbinding smile. There were hopes that he would be the next breakout star in all of China when he secured a role on an idol competition show, but before anything could get off the ground, somebody posted some very compromising photos of him online.”_

_“Compromising?”_

_Da Zhangwei makes a pained expression._

_“Yibo, you have to understand, with witches, we can get a little taken away by our magics. Like a magically induced high, if you will, and unfortunately, because empaths experience the same emotions as the people around them, it is not uncommon for them to succumb to the desires of others while they are in such a state.”_

_“Are you saying?”_

_The witch nods._

_“Someone took advantage of Xiao Zhan after a performance. They then sold the photos to a rival company, along with a statement that outed Xiao Zhan as a witch. Needless to say, the competition show dropped him."_

_“What a load of shit!”_

_Da Zhangwei had just nodded sadly at that, but Yibo’s attention had already drifted away to where Xiao Zhan had been standing with Qian Feng._

_“The scandal led to a slew of accusations against Xiao Zhan, people claiming that he had enchanted them or that he used his abilities to cheat his way up the ranks. Hell, some antis even accused him of sleeping his way up the ladder. The cyber harassment turned sexual and from there he started receiving death threats.”_

_“Was no action taken against the person who took the photos?”_

_“Xiao Zhan pressed charges for sexual assault and invasion of privacy, but the Chongqing branch of the SSD wouldn’t touch it. Xiao Zhan found the evidence himself that it was his own company who had sabotaged him, and filed for a lawsuit. He won the suit, and that restored his reputation a little bit, but with the damage done, he relocated here to start over.”_

_There is quiet between them as Yibo contemplates this new information about Xiao Zhan._

_“You like him, don’t you, Yibo?”_

_“Da-Laoshi...”_

_“I’m not going to tell you to keep your distance or anything like that. He truly does seem like a great guy. I’m just letting you know. I don’t know what kind of spell it was that you helped Xiao Zhan cast, but I can tell you that he is soaked in magic. He’s high as a kite right now, and will not be in the right state of mind to make any decisions. So take him home, put him to bed, and leave well enough alone. Any more than that, Yibo, and you will be the one taking advantage tonight.”_

He enters his apartment via his living room window, shifting back onto two legs in the privacy of his home and tossing his bag onto the sofa. He doesn’t bother to shift clothing back onto his body because he throws himself straight into the shower, water as cold as he can make it, just shy of tossing himself into a snowbank. It does it’s job. Chills him out, helps him regain his cool guy bearing, because he did not spend five years training his ass off to get a handle on his nature just to fuck it all up and end up eating the first person he’s ever developed genuine feelings for.

Yibo washes himself quickly, stepping out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist before pulling on a pair of black sweats and a ratty old t-shirt that he is pretty sure once belonged to his roommate Seungyoun at the shifter boarding school he’d gone to as a teen. He’s tired but wired and settles down with one of his lego car models, one of the ones he can pull backwards, let go of, and watch it zoom across the room with a tiny vroom sound. The repetition of the activity is cathartic in some ways.

Xiao Zhan’s premonition keeps playing and replaying in his mind. Making love to him, fucking him, taking care of him, having a life with him. Fuck! Having a kid with him. He wants that life. He wants it so badly he can taste it, but he can’t have it if he can’t control himself around the witch, no matter how good he smells and tastes.

Tomorrow, he decides. Tomorrow, when the witch isn’t vulnerable, he’ll go to Xiao Zhan’s place and ask him to lunch or something. It’ll be a real start. A proper start where Wang Yibo isn’t pretending to be a bartender, and there isn’t a witch killer on the loose. A start where he can get to know Xiao Zhan properly and for real. Court him and spoil him and fall into bed with him fully-minded and not just reflecting Yibo’s desires back to him because of a stupid magical feedback loop.

Yibo’s eyes finally grow heavy after his twentieth circuit around the room, so he picks up the car model and sets it back on the coffee table. His Nike bag, old and well-used and enchanted to serve as a qiankan bag for when he enters his shifting void, sits unobtrusively against the arm of the sofa. He should empty it out. Do the responsible thing and stow his pistol and IDs somewhere safe.

His shoulders heave.

When he finally reaches into the qiankun pouch he keeps on him for his shifting, he finds the small wrapped gift that Xiao Zhan gave him at the start of the night. It is not very big at all, fitting in one of his hands easily and rectangular in shape and flatter than it is tall. The western style wrapping has been done with care, the shiny green paper folded down in crisp clean edges and secured with small pieces of tape that Yibo has to look for to see. The bow is simple, just a red string, wound across the four axises before tying off in a neat knot with the extra string curled up in tight coils.

He wonders if Xiao Zhan knew green was Yibo’s favorite color.

Yibo settles into bed with the little box, the covers hiked up around his hips as he settles against the headboard. With careful fingers, he tears open the packaging on Xiao Zhan’s gift to reveal a plain black jewelry box. He pulls the lid off to reveal a silver ox-head pendant attached to a plain silver chain.

He pulls the necklace out of the cushion it’s nestled in and holds it up, tangling the chain around his fingers allowing the pendant to hang over his pulse point. A faint hum of magic clings to the silver, and he smiles, gently touching the nose of the ox with his fingertip. It feels like Xiao Zhan, that titillating combination of a summer breeze blowing through your hair and dogtail grass tickling your skin. He wonders what kind of charm Xiao Zhan may have cast on the amulet. Just touching it inspires a sense of safety and comfort much akin to being wrapped in a warm blanket.

He slips the necklace around his neck. The weight of it against his chest centers something inside him, and he breathes out long, his whole body exhaling in one piece as he sinks further into the blankets. He’s left the hall light on as usual and lets the hum of Xiao Zhan’s magic lull him to sleep.

Tomorrow. He’ll see the witch again tomorrow.

🀩❄🀩

He wakes up to something round and furry jumping on his head. Something round and furry with very sharp claws!

“Argh!” he shouts, flinging an arm out as his attacker pounces once again.

“Rroww!!!”

“Stop! Stop it!”

“Rrrow!”

The assault on his face relents and he opens his eyes to find a white and grey munchkin cat currently sitting on his chest. It takes him a minute to reconcile this agitated little ball of fire and brimstone with the sweet, if not somewhat territorial housecat he met earlier. but he eventually recognizes the cat as the same feline that had greeted him outside Xiao Zhan’s apartment. An apartment that was several kilometers across town.

“Jianguo?”

She gives him an affirmative snarl, and he notices for the first time that she is favoring her right side, refusing to put her left front paw on the ground. There is also blood in her fur.

“What happened to you? What are you doing here?”

The question sets something off in the small cat, and she starts zooming around the room, jumping and diving around his dressers and clothing. She nearly rips open one of his pillows, and all but shoves him over when she barrels all of her 3kgs of mass into his side. He gets the message and rolls out of bed, standing up and eyeing the animal with a confused look on his face.

“What the hell! What is wrong with you?! Are you like this all the time?”

Because holy shit, why is Xiao Zhan keeping a feral cat in his house? And why is said feral cat now in his house?

Jianguo keeps hissing and spitting at him, barely coherent even to his feline senses.

“I don’t understand you. You have to calm down.”

Jianguo takes a swipe at him, claws out, whiskers flared, tail sticking out straight behind her. He isn’t close enough for her to reach, but she keeps trying until he bares his own teeth at her, but even that doesn’t phase her, a tiny growl lingering in the back of her throat as she cowers, ear back and pasted to her skull.

Yibo’s phone goes off. Jianguo backs off at the sound, sitting back on her haunches and glaring at him as he answers it.

“Yes?!”

“Yibo, oh good, you’re awake. We have a big problem.”

“Da Laoshi?”

“Is Xiao Zhan still with you?”

What the hell?

“No, you told me specifically not to stay with him because he was running hot.”

Da Zhangwei stutters at that, but he answers quickly enough.

“He was. He is. Shit! I shouldn’t have said anything to you.”

Yibo’s shoulders sag down.

“No, you were right. He wasn’t in full control of his... facilities.”

He hears Da Zhangwei sigh. Jianguo’s tail swishes behind her in agitation.

“Yibo, we have a serious problem. He’s still in danger.”

What?

“But we got the perp!”

“No, Yibo, we didn’t. The guys we picked up. They’re all human. Ordinary, non-magical, couldn’t remember what the hell happened to them humans.”

“That’s not possible. All of them used magic at some point. I saw it.”

“I think we’re dealing with a subjugation caster.”

Subjugation, as in…

“You mean someone who can enslave people.”

“Yes. It’s rare but not impossible. We found evidence of mind control, and a subjugation master can cast spells through their thralls.”

Yibo lowers the phone as Da Zhangwei finishes. 

“Yibo, our killer is still out there, and Xiao Zhan is still his target.”

The words are faint, but Yibo hears them loud and clear as he turns to look at the cat currently pacing back and forth on his bed. No, not just a cat. 

“You’re…?”

A familiar. A witch’s familiar. Jianguo must be Xiao Zhan’s familiar. A good one at that if her ability to track him down is any indication.

Jianguo yowls in answer to the question he never finishes asking. The familiar jumps up to the open window, spine arched and hissing, not at Yibo. He realizes that now. She’s hissing because her witch is in danger and Yibo was the only person she could track down for help. Xiao Zhan certainly is a special witch to have earned the companionship of such a creature.

“Da-ge, I’ve got to go!”

Yibo hangs up before the other man can respond and tucks the phone into his Nike bag and shifts, void magic cloaking him. Jianguo’s fur stands on end as Yibo’s spine elongates, his teeth sharpen, and his senses become deadly poignant. He jumps out the open window onto the fire escape before his panther shape has even fully manifested, the small housecat quick on his heels. He tells her to stay put, but she throws such a fit at him that he folds her in his jaws and takes off across the rooftops towards Xiao Zhan’s flat.

It is no comfort when he finds the balcony doors open.

Jianguo refuses to re-enter the flat, so he sets her down on the balcony ledge where she crouches hunched in on herself. She is making that irritated growling sound in the back of her throat again as she glares into the space while Yibo, still in his feline shape enters. 

The place is saturated in so much magical residue that even Yibo with his limited awareness of such things can feel it permeating the entire space, and not all of it is Xiao Zhan’s. Xiao Zhan’s power, which Yibo has now experienced enough to get a solid handle on, feels like a mountain breeze, crisp and airy, balanced in a reflection of his birth sign. Even when Xiao Zhan was at his most turbulent, spell-soaked and nearly out of his mind with self-inflicted intoxication, his energy signature had still been weightless, like a fog folding over him rather than this.

This magic that permeates the whole of the space is anything but balanced. It’s heavy and obtrusive. It drives into his synapses like a hailstorm, torrential, dark, and painful to stand in like this, but he endures it. No wonder Jianguo didn’t enter the apartment.

There is evidence of a struggle throughout the single room flat: an overturned lamp, a burn scar on the wall, a bloodstain, still damp in the carpet. It is this that he zeros in on first. It is not Xiao Zhan’s blood. Good, the witch at least took a piece out of his attacker. Oddly enough, the blood doesn’t smell like witch at all, missing that elemental texture that magic imbues in the blood. He’s tempted to touch his tongue to the stain but refrains. He’ll leave that to the forensics team. 

The bed is in complete disarray, Xiao Zhan’s panic still potent on the torn sheets. He must have been sleeping when his attacker came in. There is also enough of the assailant’s scent on the sheets that, in combination with the blood, he should be able to track it. 

He braces himself to shift back so he can call in to Wang Han-

“Who’s got a kiss for the wickedy witch, the wickedy witch, the wickedy witch.”

The rhyme echoes, quiet even to his honed hearing, and he turns, eyes sparking like emeralds in the dark to the origin of the sound. The fireplace is still smoking, a few embers still fighting to stay alive even, but it’s cold to the touch. The heat stolen away into frost. His whiskers shrink backwards at the residual necrotic energy lingering there.

“He’s got a kiss for the wickedy witch, the wickedy witch, the wickedy witch.”

_Show yourself_

Yibo growls into the room.

“The wickedy witch. He’s got a kiss for the wickedy witch but so does she!”

A loud bang rockets through the apartment, the sharp clang of glass breaking, and the hackling laugh that reminds him far too much of those old horror movies about wicked witches and goblins and poor demented souls.

_I said show yourself_

He calls again in subhuman noises.

“Run for him kitty cat. The wickedy witch hasn’t a lot of time.”

The female ghost manifests right above Yibo, hands outstretched towards his throat, and Yibo freezes, a yelp locked in his throat as the pendant still dangling against his chest starts to shine a bright, blinding red. The ghost reels backwards, and Jianguo runs straight for it. The familiar’s magic banishes the undead out of the house, and Yibo shifts onto human legs.

It takes him all of 30 seconds to send the text to Wang Han before he has shifted back onto all fours. He holds another minor argument with Xiao Zhan’s familiar. He yields when she firmly impresses on him that that ghost might come back, but then he is off again into the night, Jianguo once again tucked between his teeth like a kitten as he tracks his witch’s smell alongside the stench of a killer he is going to relish in ripping apart.

🀩❄🀩

The trail leads him to the Temple of the Sun. Even on a festival day, the park, long closed to visitors at the late hour, is dead quiet. Still as the grave and shrouded in icy mist. Yibo knows he’s in the right place the moment he bounds the gate. There is magic in the air, thick and poignant, displaced ozone and graveyard ash. The smell of Xiao Zhan’s fear, palpable on the air, drives him forward still, and it doesn’t take long for him to find the welcome party.

Two hooded figures close on him from where they were standing guard at one of the temple entrances, but he is too quick in his animal form for them to catch. He knocks the pair unconscious easily, takes a sniff of them for good measure - both human - and then leaves Jianguo in the grass outside of the temple entrance. She only protests a little at being put down, but she stays while he prowls forward into the shadows of a darkened sanctuary.

He can sense Xiao Zhan’s magical signature now, and it is faint. Distressingly faint for how close his scent is telling him he is.

He leaps forward, rounds the corner, and, out of the darkness, the warm glow of candlelight meets his eye. There, on the far side of one of the temple antechambers, is the subjugator. He knows it’s them this time, because all of the magic that has been projected out of their supplicants feels like the foul energy stinking up the room. A circle of black candles surrounds a hooded figure standing before a limp body strung up against one of the temple columns, Xiao Zhan’s limp body. He can hear chanting coming from the figure, ugly tones in a dissonant soprano key that make Yibo’s fur stand on end. At her feet, an array drains the power out of Xiao Zhan’s body.

Yibo inches his way forward, belly close to the ground, and sees that the woman has stripped Xiao Zhan out of his top. In her hands is a rod of some kind, black as of obsidian and vaguely phallus shaped. She works her hands down the unconscious witch’s body, and Yibo can see the magic seeping from Xiao Zhan’s body into the rob as she makes her way further south.

When she reaches the waistband of his pants, Yibo pounces.

The woman screams as Yibo’s jaws nearly close around her throat, but at the last moment, she throws herself sideways. The obsidian phallus rolls across the ground and Yibo wastes no time smearing the array.

“You meddling, beast!”

A jolt of electricity strikes Yibo’s side and sends him rolling across the floor. He wraps his void magic around himself and emerges, pistol drawn, backup already being called to his location. 

“Don’t move or I’ll shoot!”

The caster ignores him, a sickly puke-yellow magic gathering in her hands. He fires off two shots. The subjugator dodges one but deflects the second back towards Yibo who flings himself sideways while firing off another shot.

This one meets its target, embedding itself in the woman’s shoulder. She jerks sideways and the hood falls off of her head to reveal her face.

“You’re the Dongzhi Shouge ji?”

It’s Yan Qing, the entertainment coordinator at The Untamed Lounge. The very woman who hired Xiao Zhan on. Hair dyed an unnatural red, with a fake tan, and nails long enough to be called claws, Yibo had always thought the woman overbearing in appearance and stature.

“I knew there was something suspicious about you. I told the boss not to hire you. But he said you were too pretty to reject. Though I will admit, I never thought you were a cop. Too pretty and stupid, but I guess looks can be deceiving.”

Yibo raises his gun. 

“But you’re-”

“Human,” she finishes for him. “Unfortunately, but my parents always said you should never let your birth station prevent you from achieving your dreams even if you had to thieve them from someone else.”

Yibo has heard of warlocks before, humans who got their magic from other sources be it demons or nature spirits. Sometimes dragons even enjoyed having a human or two around to do their bidding, but this...

“You’ve been draining witches of their magic and making it your own.”

“How astute of you, detective! Smart and handsome. You are just full of surprises.”

“Stop the casting on Xiao Zhan.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, detective.”

“I wasn’t asking you, I was telling you!”

“And I’m telling you that it is simply not possible, now be a good kitten will you and let mommy finish her work. He’s practically gone, anyway.”

The floor below his feet opens up, and Yibo loses his balance as the stone coils around his ankle.

“Mrrow!!”

A loud, screeching yowl sounds from the direction Yibo entered, and Jianguo, that crazy, reckless, loyal ball of fur, is barreling into the room with the Nü gui on her tail. The ghost flings herself directly at the warlock. Yibo takes the opportunity and fires from his place on the floor. Aiming true, the shots hit the woman dead center of her chest, and she goes down.

The candles surrounding the array extinguish. The gravel wound around Yibo’s ankle recedes back into the floor, and the magical bonds that hold Xiao Zhan to the pillar disappear. The witch drops like a lead weight to the floor.

“Zhan-ge!”

Yibo half-crawls, half-runs to him. He wraps his arms around the thinner male’s shoulder and hauls him up and into his lap.

“Xiao Zhan,” he calls, looking over the state of the witch. He is unharmed, it looks like, barely even any bruising around his wrists and ankles where he was bound. The only injury marring his skin is the handprint he’s worn all night. Still Yibo reaches for his comm.

“I need a paramedic asap. I have a victim unconscious. Shots have been fired. The assailant is down possibly dead-”

Yibo’s voice cuts off as the Nü gui flickers directly in front of him. He stifles a yelp as he flinches backwards.

“Go away!”

Naturally, the ghost ignores him, reaching for Xiao Zhan.

“Don’t touch him, you fiend!”

The hand changes its course and a single finger points at his face. Yibo screws his eyes shut, muscles frozen in fear expecting the ghost to, to… he doesn’t know. Strangle him to death, make him drown in his own blood, pull his insides from his chest! He doesn’t know!! He doesn’t deal with ghosts! But the only thing that happens is a single finger presses over his mouth to quiet him.

“Shhhhh,” she coos.

He hadn’t even realized he was screaming. He opens his eyes to look at her. Really look at her for the first time. Long black hair, wet and decorated with icicles, her features are waterlogged and grotesque, but he realizes as he looks that he recognizes her face. Yes, from a photograph of a body found in the river thirteen years ago. A photograph of the first Dongzhi victim.

“You were trying to help us find your killer.”

Her hand leaves his mouth and trails down to Xiao Zhan’s frostbitten wrist. She presses a cold dead finger to the wound, and in a matter of seconds the mark disappears before Yibo’s eyes. She then looks back up to Yibo.

“Thank you. Now save your witch.”

Her eyes close, and she disappears in the fluttering of snow.

“He’s dying,” falls like a snowflake on the wind.

That is when Yibo realizes just how cold Xiao Zhan’s body is in his arms.

“Xiao Zhan! Wake up! Please, wake up!”

He shakes the witch back and forth. The man’s head merely rolling back and forth against his chest.

“Zhan-ge!” shouts Yibo.

Jianguo makes a keening sound as she clambers up Xiao Zhan’s side and stands on his stomach. She nuzzles her head into Xiao Zhan’s ribcage and pushes as though she too is trying to wake him. When no response comes, makes a pitiful sound and just tries harder, crawling further up Xiao Zhan’s body until she is practically knocking herself against Yibo’s chest as well. 

“Where is that ambulance!” shouts Yibo into his comm.

“ETA is 15 minutes, Officer Wang.”

Xiao Zhan’s body grows impossibly colder, his heartbeat so weak that Yibo can’t hear it anymore. And his magic, which was surplus just hours ago, is nonexistent. The body in his arms feels hollow like a scroll that’s been bled of its ink. He doesn’t know how to fix this.

“We don’t have 15 minutes!”

Jianguo yowls, and the sound pierces through the growing panic in Yibo’s head. Xiao Zhan is dying from a drain on his magic. Like a cell phone running out of battery. He needs to be recharged. But how? It’s not like he had a magical power bank.

Jianguo headbutts him again, and something sharp digs into his sternum that is clearly not part of the cat.

Wait!

The necklace! The necklace Xiao Zhan charmed for him. He draws it out of his shirt and inspects the pendant. It still glitters red in the dim light of the temple. Red with Xiao Zhan’s magic.

Yibo all but yanks the chain over his head, and flings it over Xiao Zhan’s, pressing the pendant over Xiao Zhan’s heart.

“Come on, please work.”

This has to work, and like a stopper being pulled from a sink, the red sheen of energy drains out of the charm to seep into Xiao Zhan’s body. The magic from the necklace soaks into the witch’s skin so quickly, Yibo questions if there was even enough of it to do anything. He presses his hand to Xiao Zhan’s cheek, turning his head towards him.

“Open your eyes, baobao. Please.”

A long moment passes in which Yibo just prays, holding tight to the chilled body in his arms, and the longer it stretches, the more tears drip down his cheeks, sprinkling over the still face of the witch in his hold. Even his lips, once pink and full, are tinged blue and paperthin.

He’s failed. He’s failed on so many fronts. He’d found a killer but lost so much more.

“Xiao Zhan…”

The knot in his throat unravels and he gives in, loud, wretching sobs wrecking his form as he buries his face into Xiao Zhan’s bare chest. He screams into cold skin, rocking them back and forth, back and forth, until his lungs tire and his eyes ache, and then he just lays there, head pressed to the man’s breast and pretends just for a moment that he can still hear a heartbeat other than his own.

“Yibo.”

The call of his name is a ghost on the breeze. No more real than the warmth seeping into his cheek.

“Yibo,” it comes again, louder this time, firmer, more temporal. Heh! Maybe Xiao Zhan’s ghost will haunt him for the rest of his days. It would be the least he deserves. To be cursed by a dead witch for being too late.

“Wang Yibo! You’re crushing me!”

Yibo jerks his head up and nearly concusses himself on the stone column behind him as the body in his arms starts to cough.

“Xiao Zhan!”

Xiao Zhan coughs the air back into his lungs, one hand thrown haphazardly over his mouth as he wheezes. Yibo moves to help him sit up better, touching his face, his throat, his shoulders, any skin he can get his hands on. Skin that warms under his touch, skin that holds a pulse, underneath which a witch’s magic thrums quietly, albeit, much more subdued than it has any right to be, but it’s there. It’s there and thriving and getting stronger by the second. 

And when the coughing subsides, Yibo’s gaze rises to find the most beautiful pair of eyes staring right back at him in the dim glow of an ox-head pendant Xiao Zhan told him was just a meaningless trinket.

🀩❄🀩

The flickering lights of the police vehicles flash across Xiao Zhan’s face, pale but still beautiful, as he stands across the way from Yibo in a heating blanket one of the medics draped over him.

It’s been nearly an hour since the EMTs arrived along with the rest of Yibo’s team. Wang Han had been the first to congratulate Yibo on a job well done as the forensic team did a total sweep of the temple. Another forensic team is currently at Xiao Zhan’s apartment gathering any and all evidence they can recover against Yan Qing.

Yan Qing, still breathing thanks to the enchantment Yibo keeps on his weapon, has already been taken to the containment ward of the hospital for her recovery. Yibo will enjoy seeing a judge hand her her sentence when all is said and done. The chief is as irritable as ever, barking orders at everyone as he attempts to lay claim to the crime scene and bark at the reporters at the same time. Never mind that he was the one who brought the press with him to an active crime scene. He at least had the decency to grunt a half-hearted “good work” to Yibo before storming away to bully some poor foot officers.

He’s given initial statements, relinquished his firearm, and would kill for a cup of coffee. It’s annoying that cameras keep flashing in his eyes, the reporters shouting question after question at him until the chief finally steps forward, all but shoving Yibo out of the way to make himself as important as possible which is just fine by Yibo. He’d rather be with Xiao Zhan. One of Yibo’s friends from the forensics team, Gao Tianhe, who was at Xiao Zhan’s place hands him the keys to his motorcycle. He’d forgotten about having left it there. He’s been running around on all fours since Jianguo came and dragged his sorry ass out of bed. He accepts them gratefully and resolutely extracts himself from anything else once Wang Han gives him to go ahead to head out.

In Xiao Zhan’s arms, Jianguo lets out a fearsome yawn.

Xiao Zhan blinks slowly at the ground while Da Zhangwei hovers a hand over the pulse point on his wrist. The EMT’s had declared him unharmed and not at risk for shock, but the other witch had insisted on checking Xiao Zhan’s meridians.

“Your magical core is still perfectly intact. You’re just a bit drained. You should be fine in a couple of days.”

Da Zhangwei drops his hands from where they hover over Xiao Zhan’s hand as Yibo makes his way over.

“Thank you, Da-Laoshi.”

“It’s nothing. Here, I’ll leave you in our Yibo’s capable hands.”

With that Da Zhangwei steps past Yibo with a gentle pat on his shoulder. Yibo nods at the gege before stepping to Xiao Zhan.

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m alright, just tired,” answers the witch.

Jianguo makes a little _mrp_ sound into the witch’s elbow. The tired sound an echo of Yibo’s own climbing exhaustion. 

“Things are wrapping up here, from the looks of it, and I’ve been declared off duty for the night. We can head out whenever you’d like.”

Xiao Zhan’s shoulders sag and he looks at the ground.

“I don’t think I could stomach going back to that apartment tonight.”

Yibo swallows around the knot in his throat.

“I was actually wondering if you’d like to come to my place. It’s safe and dry, and there hasn’t been a forensics team digging through everything.”

“Didi,” Xiao Zhan starts.

“I can sleep on the couch. I normally sleep on the couch anyway since I always fall asleep playing video games, and you could shower, if you wanted-” 

“Okay, Didi.”

“-with hot water and I have extra clothes. I don’t have much by way of food but we could-” it suddenly registers what Xiao Zhan said. “What?”

“I said okay, Didi.”

Xiao Zhan smiles gently while Yibo scrambles for a foothold. 

“Really? Okay. Wow! Cool!”

The witch laughs, a sound that rings like bamboo on a wind chime. He hasn’t heard it all night. Not like this, freely given and unrestrained.

Yibo quiets and just listens, content to simply watch the other man. He’s radiant, truly, like the sun reflecting over the snow. Then Xiao Zhan lets his head fall back, exposing the stretch of his throat, and Yibo’s tongue itches to lick along the line of his Adam’s apple. Abashed, he looks away, trying to find interest in something other than Xiao Zhan, but the man’s laughing visage is too enchanting, especially considering all of the shit they’ve been through tonight, so he keeps stealing glances until Xiao Zhan quiets, a hand coming to rest on Yibo’s elbow.

“Take me home, Lao Wang.”

“Hn,” nods Yibo. “I’ll pull the bike around. Stay here with Jianguo.”

Xiao Zhan ducks his head, the fatigue lining his features once more, and Yibo kickstarts himself towards his bike. There is decidedly not a spring in his step, but even if there is, the only one watching him is a witch who will be spending the rest of the night in his bed, no matter if Yibo is there to share it with him or not.

🀩❄🀩

The ride to Yibo’s apartment is quick and smooth, Xiao Zhan’s arms snug around the werepanther’s hips and Jianguo tucked into a Yibo’s Nike bag and slung over Xiao Zhan’s shoulders. Yibo maneuvers the cycle through the thinned out Beijing traffic. It’s so late that they drive past people driving into work for shifts that start before sunrise.

He keeps a firm but gentle hold on Xiao Zhan’s arm as they trudge their way up the stairs and into the apartment once Yibo unlocks the door. Jianguo bounds out of the Nike bag the moment she is let free, and hobbles her way over to the couch in Yibo’s living room.

It’s chilly from the window being left open. Yibo shuts the pane and turns back to the witch standing in the middle of his home looking around.

“Do you want a shower? I can get you some spare clothes.”

Xiao Zhan, who has been wearing Yibo’s coat in lieu of his shirt that was lost earlier, shivers and nods and follows Yibo down the hall towards the bathroom. He shows him where the clean towels are and lets him know that he’s welcome to use whatever he needs which quickly segway’s into him looking to make sure anything Xiao Zhan might possibly need is accounted for: a razor, a washcloth, oh, there is that nose stick that helps clear up his sinuses, aftershave - not that Xiao Zhan needs to shave but just in case - is there extra toilet paper somewhere? Yes…under the sink -wait, why does he have a pot of women’s facial care cream in his drawer? Well, he’ll leave that out too. Fuck, he’s carrying on again. Like a psychopath and he doesn’t even know what words are falling out of his mouth, but he is totally embarrassing himself and he needs to stop right now.

“Yibo?”

Yibo stops digging for a spare toothbrush to look at Xiao Zhan.

“Yes?”

“Thank you, Yibo.”

Yibo doesn’t let himself get taken aback by the gratitude Xiao Zhan is offering him for saving his life. He doesn’t deserve it. Not for this. Hell, if he’d done a better job of it, Xiao Zhan’s life would never have been in danger, but that’s a coulda, woulda, shoulda that he won’t be examining. Especially when Xiao Zhan is currently standing in his bathroom swimming in his coat.

“That’s my job, Xiao Zhan. I was just doing my job.”

Now it’s apparently Xiao Zhan’s turn to fidget. The man tugs at the hem of Yibo’s jacket, eyes down and flicking around the room like he’s not quite sure where he should be looking.

“No, I mean… Not for that. Not for the whole Shouge Ji thing, though I’m grateful for that, too. I mean for earlier.”

Yibo’s brow furrows in confusion.

“For saying ‘no’ to me when I was in the weave.”

Understand dawns across Yibo’s features. Xiao Zhan clears his throat and flicks a finger across the tip of his nose like he’s nervous or thinking or trying to figure out if bring up what happened outside Xiao Zhan’s apartment was a bad move.

“Zhan-ge,” Yibo calls, gently as all of his anxiety drains out of him in an instant. “I’m not an asshole. I wouldn’t take advantage of you like that.”

“Still thank you. I’m sorry I put you in that situation.”

Xiao Zhan has his arms wrapped around his chest, looking down at the ground as though ashamed. And that is unacceptable. He covers the space between them in one long stride and takes one of the witch’s hands into his own. Xiao Zhan’s hand is ice cold in Yibo’s, so he wraps both of his own around the limb which is, strikingly, much smaller than his own.

“You have nothing to be sorry for, Xiao Zhan. Don’t apologize for what you are or who you are.”

It’s a story they all have to find peace with as supernaturals. Yibo’s mother is a werepanther as well, but his father is human. They had been hoping Yibo wouldn’t inherit his mother’s nature, so Yibo had grown up human. The first time Yibo shifted, he was thirteen, and the experience had changed his whole life. Things go wrong when you have one foot in the human world and another in the realm of magic. He’d made his mistakes, some of them small, some of them more magnified, all of them lessons learned, and he came out on the other side alright. He thinks so anyway; he made peace with his regrets long enough ago.

“Your magic is part of who you are. You shouldn’t be ashamed of it. It’s too wonderful to merit your shame.”

Yibo raises Xiao Zhan’s hand to his face and presses his lips to Xiao Zhan’s knuckles.

The witch inhales.

“Bo-di?”

Yibo gives the man’s delicate hand one more nuzzle, inhaling deep of the scent at the witch’s pulse point, before releasing his hold. Xiao Zhan’s fingers slide out from between his palms almost reluctantly. The werecat offers him a small smile before excusing himself to find Xiao Zhan some clothes, shutting the door behind him. It’s still freezing in the house, so he turns up the heater before heading into his bedroom. He takes a second to tidy up, picking up a few stray socks and pairs of underwear, throwing them into the laundry hamper, and then setting to the task of finding the witch some clothes. Yibo pulls a pair of sweatpants and a long sleeve shirt before heading back to the bathroom.

He knocks twice and when he hears Xiao Zhan’s ascent cracks the door open. The water is running and there is steam already filling the room. He sets the clothes on the counter and makes a concerted effort not to glance towards the shower where he can clearly see the outline of Xiao Zhan’s naked body through the frosted glass. He then shuts the door with a click and traipses his way back to the living room.

Jianguo is licking her hurt leg on the couch.

“You shouldn’t do that,” he says. She stops what she is doing and glares at him, tucking the hurt limb back underneath her like a petulant teenager. Hands on his hips, he sighs right back at her before making up his mind.

“Come here, little one. Let’s take a look at that leg.”

🀩❄🀩

Part 3 - Yizhan

🀩❄🀩

The water is scalding in the most delicious way, and Xiao Zhan sinks into the feeling, exhaling a breath he feels has been lodged between his ribs for the last hour and a half. Gods above, nothing has ever felt this good, nothing, not even sex, at least not any that he’s ever had. 

He skates his fingers through his now wet hair, scraping from hairline to the base of his skull and back again before dragging his palms down the planes of his face. He pauses fingertips over the crest of his lips, eyes opening, suddenly, while the water rains over his chin and throat. He folds his hand into a loose fist and presses it against his lips. Right where Yibo had kissed him. He closes his eyes and lets himself remember the taste and texture of every premonition he’s had tonight. How those sensations paired with the touch of Yibo’s aura inside of his empathy.

Tantalizing. Riveting. Worth going all in for?

Because Yibo is unlike anyone he has ever met before. Solid and strong but kind. He remembers the way his body burned at Yibo’s touch. How good it felt to laugh with him. How fucking amazing it is that Yibo had managed to not give in to his seduction, how he’d managed to save his life, how he made Xiao Zhan feel safe and important and so, so cherished.

He makes his decision and reaches for Yibo’s body soap.

In the living room, Yibo is on the couch, just tying off the bandage around a wriggling Jianguo’s leg, when Xiao Zhan enters the room. At some point, between chasing the tiny feline around the apartment and figuring out what was wrong with her leg, he’d also managed to set up the coach with a pillow and a blanket for him, and Xiao Zhan’s gaze goes straight to the pitiful set up.

“I don’t want to kick you out of your own bed.”

“You aren’t kicking me out if I’m offering it to you, ge. And besides, you’re taller than me. You’ll regret even laying down on this couch, let alone sleeping on it.”

Never mind that it’s going to be an uncomfortable fold for his human form as well, but if he gets too uncomfortable, he can always shift and curl up in relative comfort, not that he makes a habit of sleeping in his panther form, but he has done it on occasion.

“You’re not that much shorter than me, Bo-ge.”

The inflection of Xiao Zhan voice is higher, almost 骚(Sao). But Xiao Zhan wouldn’t be outright flirty with him now of all times. Would he?

“We can share the bed,” the man declares and before Yibo can utter a protest, he’s already strode his way across the room (damn! Are his legs long!), scooped up the pillow thrown haphazard on the couch, and disappeared back up the hallway towards Yibo’s bedroom. Yibo stares after him, jaw slack. Did he- 

“Meow.”

Jianguo looks at him, blinking her large amberg eyes at him as though telling that she would be claiming the couch for herself, thank you very much. It’s as much of a dismissal he has ever received from an actual cat, he realizes, before getting up to follow after the blasted witch.

Only when he gets to the room, he stops cold at the sight of Xiao Zhan standing next to his bed. The hallway light casts long shadows through the room. The curtains are drawn over the window, but Yibo’s acute, ailuran eyes can already see the minute shift of light as the darkest part of the night begins to recede. Xiao Zhan stands in half darkness with his eyes closed, hand outstretched towards the swirled iron grating of the bedframe’s head.

There is no magic in the air, yet as though bewitched, Yibo’s feet carry him forward until he stands close enough to touch Xiao Zhan. He sets a hand on the witch’s shoulder.

“Zhan-ge?”

Xiao Zhan traces his fingertips over the iron bars of the bed frame.

“I saw you fucking me here.”

Yibo stiffens behind him. Xiao Zhan reaches to tangle his fingers with Yibo’s, keeping the shifter from darting away. He hears the younger swallow.

“Do you want me to fuck you?”

Xiao Zhan turns into Yibo, and the detective dutifully encircles Xiao Zhan in his arms. Soft, nimble fingers card around Yibo’s jawline, and Xiao Zhan tilts the younger man’s head up to capture his mouth in a searing kiss. This kiss is different than any of the others they’ve shared tonight. It is not discolored by magic or desperation. It is not an anxious kiss, nor an delusional fumble. This is purposeful. Meaningful. Better than anything Yibo may or may not have imagined, better than any phantom vision or conjuration dream. Xiao Zhan is lucid and warm in Yibo’s arms. He smells like Yibo’s bodywash and shampoo with an underlying tone of spice and green tea, Xiao Zhan’s natural witchy scent.

Yibo’s grip tightens. 

The witch sighs into Yibo’s hold and parts his lips, and Yibo accepts the invitation to delve deeper.

Xiao Zhan’s hands fist in his shirt as he steps backwards. He lets himself fall to the bed and Yibo goes down after him, never letting the space between them increase. Yibo’s hands rake down Xiao Zhan’s sides. The witch bucks up, rolling the two of them over until he is straddling Yibo’s hips. He offers a playful roll of his hips that elicits a hiss to fall from Yibo’s tongue. The drag of it electric against his quickly hardening dick. Yibo catches Xiao Zhan’s waist and pushes up, rolling the man back underneath him and cupping one hand under his jaw.

Xiao Zhan breaks their kiss to ask again.

“Do you want to fuck me?”

It’s a ridiculous question. They both know it but for different reasons.

Yibo surges forward, too fast, too intense. Teeth meet sensitive flesh and Xiao Zhan gasps at the sharp pain of his lip splitting, but he doesn’t care, pushing up and diving into Yibo’s open mouth, tongue and teeth and blood all pushing forward. Yibo sucks on the other man’s tongue, drinks down the taste of the witch’s blood, a pleased rumble in his chest. His instincts do not try to overtake him, instead his inner wildcat seems to stretch out, lazy and exceedingly pleased, before curling back up in the center of his soul like a well fed tomcat.

“I don’t want to fuck you,” he says, finally breaking away just long enough to spit the words out. He dives right back in before Xiao Zhan’s breath can even finish hitching. He inhales the man’s exhale, licks into his mouth, and keeps him there, writhing with unspoken pleas for an explanation.

“I don’t want to fuck you,” he repeats into Xiao Zhan’s mouth, and the witch swallows the words with a whine, trying to buck up into Yibo who holds himself too far away from Xiao Zhan for him to make an substantial contact. Yibo lifts up from Xiao Zhan’s mouth again, this time to kiss and mouth and tongue his way down the side of Xiao Zhan’s face. Teeth nibble at Xiao Zhan’s ear, dulled nails glide down his side, and Yibo’s hips finally lower down into the cradle of his thighs.

“I don’t want to fuck you, Xiao Zhan,” he repeats a once more, eyes halflidded, pupils dilated, otherworldly emerald reflecting out of their depths as he stares directly into Xiao Zhan’s own darkened gaze, tinged in ruby red. The panther’s bangs fall into Xiao Zhan’s face as he tries to catch his breath. “I want to make love to you.”

“Yibo-”

“I almost lost you.”

Xiao Zhan’s next inhale is as sharp as one of Yibo’s claws. The werecat screws his eyes shut, tears burning hot behind their lids as he leans his forehead into the side of Xiao Zhan’s head, breathing in heavy puffs against Xiao Zhan’s jawline.

“I almost lost you tonight, and you aren’t even mine.”

Xiao Zhan’s hand drifts over Yibo’s face. Gentle fingers, a hand that Yibo has seen carve out the most beautiful spellwork, trace through his hair, gliding down to finger the silver chain once again resting around Yibo’s neck. He twines the ox-head pendant between his thumb and forefinger.

“Would you want me to be yours, Lao-Wang?”

“Yes. Gods, yes!”

“Then I am yours.”

Clothes are shed, the sheets rucked down to the foot of the bed amidst a brief discussion of yes’s and no’s for their first time together, safewords established to be used when needed. Yibo ends up laid out on his back, hips bracketed by Xiao Zhan’s thighs as the witch strokes across his flank. Yibo has one large palm wound tightly around both of their shafts, pumping both Xiao Zhan and himself in long, firm strokes. On one particularly rough stroke over the head of the witch’s pretty cock, Xiao Zhan throws his head backwards with a groan, hands flying into the bedsheets behind him as he arches prettily, thrusting his hips forward further into Yibo’s touch.

“Bo-ge, please.”

Yibo licks his lips at the sight of the long line of Xiao Zhan’s throat completely bared to him in abandon. Hunger flairs in the pit of his stomach, and Yibo’s teeth ache with the urge to bury themselves in the witch’s flesh. Xiao Zhan thrusts his hips forward again, straining for the slide of Yibo’s fingers and cock against his own, and Yibo gives into his need to get his mouth on Xiao Zhan. Yibo releases his grip with a hiss and rolls the man over onto his back.

A strangled cry escapes the witch’s throat as Yibo ducks his head down and swallows Xiao Zhan whole. He bobs his head over the man’s shaft, hollowing his cheeks and sucking viciously on the turgit flesh between his lips.

“Yibo! Hah! Wait!”

That’s all the warning he gets as Xiao Zhan comes undone within the heat of Yibo’s mouth. The panther hums in pleasure as he laps up his witch’s spend most enthusiastically, a cat that got the cream. He doesn’t even let Xiao Zhan recover, flipping the witch over onto his stomach before drawing him up onto his knees. Xiao Zhan breathes long and hard, his sides heaving under Yibo’s hands as the feline shifter licks a wet trail from the base of his spine all the way up to his right ear.

The witch smells so fucking delicious. He smells like Yibo and arousal and his own clean musk. And the taste of him! Mmm. It’s unlike anything Yibo has ever tasted. Airy with just a touch of smoke, like an autumn breeze, a flavor he is certain he will never tire of even in a hundred lifetimes.

Xiao Zhan cries out as Yibo’s teeth close down on the meat of his shoulder. Not hard enough to break skin, but substantially enough that he knows Xiao Zhan will be able to feel the outline of his sharp canines. He gnaws lazily at the flesh between his teeth before pulling off with a hard suck that is guaranteed to leave a lovely bruise later. He nips at Xiao Zhan’s ear, cradling the shell of it with the tip of his tongue.

“You smell so good, ge, and your skin... I could fucking devour you.”

As Xiao Zhan falls back to earth, he swears he hears the were purring into his ear. He’s somehow been flipped onto his chest, knees folded underneath him, hips raised obscenely into the air. Yibo’s erection grinds into the meat of his ass. He knows somewhere in the back of his head that he hasn’t been prepped yet, and it's been so long it would be a wretched experience without at least lube, especially considering the sizable girth and length he’s seen of the panther’s equipment, yet still, he bucks backwards to meet Yibo’s pelvis, wriggling and whining to get his want across.

The head of Yibo’s cock bumps against his pucker, and he opens his mouth to beg, but just as the words form around his tongue, the shifter pulls back, a hand coming down in a firm slap on his ass that turns into a full, five-fingered grope.

“Behave, witch.”

“Yibo,” he growls in frustration. He just came, still very sensitive and thrumming with the aftershock. He shouldn’t be so desperate.

The steam of Yibo’s breath disappears from his neck, and the next thing he knows, Yibo licks a smooth, damp line across his taint, over his rim, and to his tailbone where teeth drag along the sensitive skin there. The witch’s world nearly crumbles under the attention and all he can do is gasp and moan as Yibo begins to enthusiastically eat him out.

Yibo holds Xiao Zhan’s thighs still as he goes to town on Xiao Zhan’s exposed derriere. He mouths at Xiao Zhan’s balls, still tense and twitching from his orgasm, draws shapes into the witch’s taint, and tongues him open, purring at the fresh flavor of Xiao Zhan’s most intimate of places, and Xiao Zhan… Oh Xiao Zhan! Even before this, the witch had already been vocal in his pleasure, reactive under his touch, and so precious in his responses to Yibo’s ministrations. Now, as Yibo devours him, he is downright noisy. He keens and shouts and sighs. The first time Yibo’s tongue finds his prostate, he outright screams “Bo-ge!” and Yibo does not let up until he deems Xiao Zhan sufficiently debauched by the panther’s show of prowess in analingus.

Xiao Zhan, hardening again as Yibo works him, sags as Yibo’s tongue leaves him, murmuring nonsense into the sheets. He pants, dully aware of the snap of the bottle of lube being opened and then a long finger is fed into him quickly followed by a second. Yibo scissors him open, gentle yet insistent, and Xiao Zhan knows he is not the only one nearly overwrought with anticipation.

Yibo’s hand draws back, his wrist twisting as he folds a third finger in with the first two and adding a smattering of lubricant before pressing all three digits into Xiao Zhan with a hum. The witch takes it so beautifully, all soft moans and “yes''s and “more”s, that Yibo wonders how exquisit it will be to see him take a cock. His cock specifically, he thinks with relish as he mouths at Xiao Zhan’s plush backside.

“Yibo…”

Yibo looks up to find Xiao Zhan half twisted around. He is still mostly lying on his chest just the way Yibo positioned him, head turned back to look at Yibo, left cheek pressed into the sheets, eyes half-lidded. There’s a sultry look about him, pink high on his cheeks, as he pants out Yibo’s name in short breathy syllables. Yibo understands immediately what Xiao Zhan wants, what Xiao Zhan needs.

Yibo withdraws from Xiao Zhan’s heat and wipes his hand on a stray piece of clothing before curling both arms around the witch’s slim waist. Xiao Zhan lifts himself up into the were’s hold, turning to set both hands on either side of the younger’s face.

“Ready, Lao Xiao?”

The words fall in cool bursts of air over Xiao Zhan’s mouth. Xiao Zhan doesn’t answer, not with words anyway. Instead his eyes trace the shifter’s face, gazing into darkened eyes before drifting down. Yibo’s lips are swollen and slick with spit, hair tousled from Xiao Zhan’s hands running through it earlier. He twists Yibo around him and draws him into another kiss. Xiao Zhan can feel his entrance fluttering around nothing; he’s so open and wet and terribly, terribly ready.

“Show me, Lao Wang,” he hushes against Yibo’s mouth. “Like this.” 

No condom. Just skin on skin. Wang Yibo and Xiao Zhan.

The werepanther groans deep in his throat, a growl tinging the edges of the sound, and Xiao Zhan finds himself pulled into a short, dirty kiss that is more tongue and teeth than lips before Yibo shoves him back down, hands pressing possessively over his own. He grips the sheets and forces his muscles to relax as the head of Yibo’s lube-slick cock breaches him.

“Ah!”

The were’s hips gyrate forward again, feeding more of the man’s thick length into Xiao Zhan’s willing body. It’s a tense slide, and Xiao Zhan focuses on relaxing into it. Nearly howling as Yibo’s girth spears him open.

“Do you feel me yet, Xiao Zhan?”

Another sensual grind forward and Yibo’s hips press flush with Xiao Zhan’s ass. Yibo’s chest presses firm into his back, a hard line of feral power that gives way to the tenderest warmth. Xiao Zhan curls his fingers around Yibo’s longer digits. He exhales in a short laugh, smiling as he relishes in the feel of Yibo within him, heavy and thick and so much Xiao Zhan doesn’t think he’s ever felt so properly invaded.

He hears Yibo’s sigh, but feels it into the very marrow of his bones. Even if he wasn’t an empath, he would know what that sigh is for his new lover: the release of a bone deep weariness, the kind that can only be relieved by the inexplicable comfort of returning home, of sinking into a favorite armchair next to a warm hearth on a cold winter night, of falling into the familiar arms of a soulmate after a long parting.

“Do you feel me, Zhan-ge?”

Gods, yes! He does! Not just physically.

Yibo’s lust, his hunger, the bliss coursing through his nerves, his immeasurable joy, and then woven around all that, the incandescent spark of a fledgling emotion Xiao Zhan is no longer afraid to name. All of it rolls through Xiao Zhan’s body from every point of contact they share.

“You love me,” he gasps out as Yibo begins to move, short, quick thrusts that cause Xiao Zhan’s breath to hitch, waves of pleasure cascading over him at the cadence of Yibo’s hips. It’s intense the way Yibo feels: hard and pulsing with desire into his body and soft and boundless in his heart.

 _“Shì,”_ growls Yibo. The word is accented by the slap of their bodies coming together, Yibo’s hips dragging into a fever pitch. “What else?”

“En!” Xiao Zhan gives a strangled cry as a particularly sharp thrust finds his prostate.

“What else, Zhan-ge?”

He mewls into the sheets while Yibo’s teeth scrape across his cheekbone.

_“Wǒ ài nǐ.”_

“Yes!”

The bedroom fills with the sounds of their love-making: the rhythmic smack of skin on skin, Xiao Zhan’s sobbing moans, and Yibo’s ground out groans. Yibo pulls off Xiao Zhan’s back to slot his hands around the witch’s hips in a bruising hold, rutting into his body in earnest, and he is so tight and warm and perfect that stars dance in front of Yibo’s eyes. Xiao Zhan keens and pushes back, meeting Yibo thrust for thrust, bracing his hands on the bed frame. How pretty those wrists would look with silver bracelets snapped around them, holding him there for Yibo to please and pleasure. Not tonight, though. They haven’t talked about that. Another night. Soon, and then again and again and again, so long as the witch will have him. But not tonight.

“Turn over, Baobao,” he commands into Xiao Zhan’s ear.

He wants to see his face. He needs to see his face. Watch as those lovely lips part as he moans and gasps, as his face shifts with orgasm, watch his head thrash from side to side as he fucks him into oblivion. Watch him as Yibo takes him apart for the very first time.

Xiao Zhan shudders in his arms as he pulls out of the witch with a hiss. Xiao Zhan, short of breath and slick with sweat, rolls onto his back. His eyes are bright in the dimly lit room. Magic simmering in their depths, clear as the stars, no, blooming crimson like the planet Mars in the night sky. 

“Yibo,” he calls, moving to part his knees on either side of the younger man’s thighs. Before Xiao Zhan can properly rearrange himself, those sinful hands are dragging him across the bed by the hips. Yibo folds one of his legs to his chest, kisses him wholly on the mouth, and ensnares one of Xiao Zhan’s ankles in his palm before rising up, one knee still braced on the bed, while he stands on the other. Another yank on his ankle lands Xiao Zhan in the most obscene spread of his legs.

“Don’t hold anything back, Zhan-ge.”

Yibo sheathes himself back into the witch’s tight head in one fluid motion, and Xiao Zhan throws his head back with a scream of pleasure, holding on for dear life as Yibo sets a dizzying pace, hard and fast and delicious. Each forward thrust a velvety torture against his prostate, nearly blinding him with the force of it. 

Yibo is everywhere, eager and in total control of him that Xiao Zhan feels giddy from the man’s vigor. Every grind, every tug, every touch sending him soaring higher than any spell ever has. He feels like he is going to ascend or die or both happily trapped under Yibo and subjected to his whims.

“Yi-Yibo. I can’t-ugh! I can’t!”

“Yes, you can.”

Yibo lets go of Xiao Zhan’s leg, and without prompt, the witch reaches down to hold himself open for Yibo. All for Yibo. Tonight he gives more of himself than he has ever given before. Opening not just his body to the man moving in and above him.

Tonight is for beginnings.

“Ah! _Wǒ ài nǐ, Didi.”_

“Yes, Xiao Zhan! Yes. Fuck, you’re so beautiful for me. Just for me!”

In this, their first coupling, Yibo makes love to Xiao Zhan with all the ferocity of a wild cat while Xiao Zhan’s magic strengthens and returns, coiling around them like a crisp wind guiding them as they ride their shared ecstasy over the crest.

“Yibo!”

“Xiao Zhan.”

The sweat gathers at the base of Yibo’s spine as he continues to work his hips into Xiao Zhan until their shared pleasure peaks and peaks and peaks...

🀩❄🀩

The sky begins to lighten into a true dawn by the time they’ve taken their fill of each other.

Wrung out and filthy, the pair drag themselves into the bathroom for clean up and then promptly collapse back into bed. 

Yibo moves to open the curtain. He wants to see the sunrise because, fucking hell, he’s awake for it. He might as well enjoy it, and Xiao Zhan turned off the hall light, and it’s still too dark for comfort. Xiao Zhan laughs and yanks the man back before he can get all the way up. With a wave of his hand the curtain slides open, and Yibo stares in wonder as the magic dissipates back into the ether. It’s sweet and so terribly genuine that Xiao Zhan feels like he could wrap himself inside it and find a warmth that not even the hottest of fires could replicate. It’s all the more tantalizing to know how commanding, how alpha the younger man can be.

They lie next to each other, legs tangled together, fingertips mapping one another’s bodies in lazy unhurried circles. Murmuring back and forth about nothing and everything. The first of many more to come.

Eventually, they’ll fall asleep and life will go on. Yibo will go on working to defend and protect, while Xiao Zhan will continue to forge his own path forward as a singer and performer, and if, occasionally, he uses his powers of clairvoyance to help Yibo solve a case, it’s all just rumors anyway. Xiao Zhan never rebinds himself, his trust in Yibo steadfast and unwavering. He knows Yibo will catch him whenever he flies too close to the sun, and Yibo never stops finding wonderment in the witch he met on an undercover job who saved his life just as much as he saved his. Years down the line, the surety between them unfolds into a promise for a lifetime that gives them a life and a family all of their own, overflowing with magic and wild, boundless love.

But “eventually” is for the future.

For now, Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo watch the sun rise on the longest night of the year, remaking the world in shades of orange, red, and yellow.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for make it all the way to the end!
> 
> To Emma,  
> I hope you enjoyed it! This has been brewing in my head since the conclusion of my last story. I'm so sorry, I couldn't fulfill your Hunger Games prompt, but it would have been way to long to meet the Secret Santa Exchange deadline. However, it is in the works. Keep a look out on the horizon for an a/b/o Hunger Games AU over the next few months. *wink wink*
> 
> Merry Christmas and Happy Solstice, love!!  
> Cheers To 2021!!
> 
> If you like my work follow me on twitter @lamachina17


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